By Akhila Vijayaraghavan
- Published on August 23, 2011 by TriplePundit
Everybody is familiar with ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch’ which is present in the North Pacific gyre, one of the five gyres of our ocean systems. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), more than 7,000,000 tons of garbage reaches the marine environment every year, approximately 80% of which comes from land. Plastic that does not sink is broken down into smaller polymers by sunlight and wave action which forms an every present ‘soup’ suspended in the upper layers. The size of this garbage patch is said to be twice the size of Texas.