www.mindfully.org/Plastic/O...cNov03.htm

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It seemed unbelievable, but I never found a clear spot. In the week it took to cross the subtropical high, no matter what time of day I looked, plastic debris was floating everywhere: bottles, bottle caps, wrappers, fragments. Months later, after I discussed what I had seen with the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, perhaps the world's leading expert on flotsam, he began referring to the area as the "eastern garbage patch." But "patch" doesn't begin to convey the reality. Ebbesmeyer has estimated that the area, nearly covered with floating plastic debris, is roughly the size of Texas.
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According to this it is not a solid mass but everywhere you look in this area you will see plastic. Twenty years ago I was appalled when my friend who took many voyages in small ships told me that they just threw the garbage overboard. She explained that if they took it to where they were going it would overwhelm them. Granted this isn't just coming from ships but the idea that the ocean is so large that it wouldn't matter is one we can't believe.