The Facts

• Of the seven common plastics, only two of these are readily recycleable, and only 3 percent to 5 percent of plastics are recycled at all. Americans alone throw away approximetely 100 billion plastic bags a year. Approximetely 10 percent of plastics wind up in the ocean, the majority of which starts out as loose garbage along coastal areas. Vortexes of ocean currents called "gyres" have slowly gathered together the ocean's trash into huge patches.
  
  

Size

• In the Pacific Ocean, trash has accumulated to the point that it's been called a "trash continent." A vortex of ocean currents called the "North Pacific Subtropical Gyre" has collected trash into a single area between Hawaii and California. Once there, the trash sits like a thin soup over an area twice the size of the state of Texas. The entire collection is estimated to weigh 3.5 million tons, where it outweighs plankton by a factor of six.
  
  

Misconceptions

• The most prominent collection of ocean trash, in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, has been called a "trash continent." The use of the word "continent" has proved misleading, however. The word refers only to the spread of the affected area. This collection of trash is not a solid mass but essentially a massive swath of filthy, polluted water. Due to this soup-like density and the transparency of many plastics, the "island" is not readily visible on satellite photographs.
  
  

History of

• Until the 20th century, most trash was biodegradable and broke down naturally in the ocean. The advent of non-biodegradable plastics has allowed trash to build up in the ocean over time, to the point that it poses a threat to marine life. In the late 1970s, attention was directed to plastic six-pack rings and their tendancy to choke marine wildlife--until in 1989, legislation was passed that required these rings to be 100 percent photodegradable. The island of trash in the Pacific Ocean was discovered in 1997 by an American sailor named Charles Moore.
  
  

Risk Factors

• Several types of animals mistake plastic trash for food. Autopsies of dead birds have discovered more than 300 plastic bags in one stomach. Although plastic may break down over time, it only breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces until it is the size of most plankton. Furthermore, plastics act as "chemical sponges" by absorbing and concentrating some of the most harmful ocean pollutants (known as persistent organic pollutants, or POPs). Over time, the accumulation of plastics in the ocean may disrupt the food chain and environment.