Why is it a misconception?

The Trash Island

The Ocean Cleanup’s mission is to rid the world’s oceans of plastic – by cleaning up what is already out there and by stopping what is making its way to the sea in rivers. We currently have active cleanup operations in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the largest accumulation of plastic in the open ocean. This patch is often incorrectly also referred to as the ‘Trash Island.’ Let’s go through some details as to why there’s actually no such thing as an island of floating trash in the middle of the ocean.

The Trash Island: what is it?

If you search online for ‘trash island,’ you’ll mostly see results related to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (along with images that mostly have nothing at all to do with the patch ). This patch is the largest of the five known garbage patches in the ocean. Located halfway between California and Hawaii, it spans an area twice the size of Texas, where ocean plastic accumulates in a vortex of converging currents. The garbage patch is constantly on the move, depending on the season. The plastic floating here is spread between the surface and a few meters’ depth. The patch is estimated to contain 100,000 metric tons of plastic, a weight equivalent to over 740 Boeing 777s.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2030 with and without cleanup. [scale units : kg/km2] — Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2030 with and without cleanup. [scale: kg/km²]

Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2030 with and without cleanup. [scale: kg/km²]

Think plastic soup, not an island

Although this area has a high density of plastic compared to the surrounding ocean, it still resembles more of a thin soup than a dense mass that a person could stand on. In fact, the concentration of plastic varies widely – from so-called ‘hotspots,’ with hundreds of kilograms per square kilometer, to rather less dense areas with only 10 kilograms per square kilometer. And it’s exactly this dispersion that makes it harder to clean up the garbage patch. If the plastic was all in one place, you could simply scoop it up – but instead, the cleanup operation needs to target the ever-moving high-concentration zones in order to make any cleanup effective.

Close view of System 03 deployed in the GPGP, October 2023 — System 03 deployed in the GPGP, October 2023

Thumbnail System 03 biggest extraction — System 03 Delivers: Our Biggest Plastic Extraction to Date

Plastic accumulating along the barrier of System 002

What does the patch look like?

Many wonder what the Great Pacific Garbage Patch looks like. The term ‘trash island’ was likely coined because it is easier to visualize, and it makes the problem more tangible. But this image is far from accurate.

At a quick glance, the garbage patch looks just like a vast ocean, especially in the areas with lower concentrations. But as you enter a hotspot or get closer to the surface, you’ll see plastic of all shapes and sizes floating by. If you trawl through the water, you’ll also find many smaller flakes of plastic, which have broken off from larger objects.

While we are working on detecting some of the larger objects from space, you won’t be able to pick up a mass of plastic on satellite imagery.

Trail of plastic floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A selection of large objects observed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch during the Aerial Expedition

Plastic bottles floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Surface sampling ‘Manta trawl’ in action. With a trawl, you can see how much microplastic there is per area trawled.

Hotspot in GPGP — Plastic in the GPGP is widely dispersed, but there are ever-moving hotspots that we aim to target for the most efficient cleanup

So why clean it up?

At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter if we call it ‘trash island,’ ‘plastic soup,’ or ‘garbage patch.’ For example, LADbible made a campaign to raise awareness for the ‘trash isles’ in 2017, generating tremendous reach and engagement. The more people are aware of this massive plastic problem, the better. The plastic will not go away by itself; instead, it will break off into smaller pieces, becoming increasingly difficult to clean up – and more harmful. Our research also estimated that there is much more plastic in this area than biomass, indicating that plastic could be a primary ‘food’ source for marine life here. But, regardless of what it looks like, the reality is that 100,000 metric tons of plastic can – and must! – be cleaned up.