In the north Pacific Ocean, a huge clockwise-churning vortex stretches from the equator up to southern Canada.<br />According to HuffPost, within the massive gyre is an ever-growing swell of trash known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.<br />But it's not a cohesive patch, exactly, or one island-like accumulation of debris.<br />Clumps of plastic bottles, abandoned fishing gear and beer crates are scattered across the expanse of ocean from Japan to California.<br />There's an estimated 88,000 tons of artificial debris in the eastern stretch of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.<br />Nearly half of the waste is discarded fishing gear, in which marine animals can become fatally entangled.<br />Eventually, the sun breaks the garbage down into tiny particles. Such microplastics are also an increasingly significant source of pollution.<br />One estimate from NOAA's Marine Debris Program says it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than 1% of the waste.
