[mthmohan]

There are natural "gyres" in the oceans that collect garbage - see this link for the "Great Pacific garbage patch" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch). It's about the size of Texas and has a significant amount of plastic in it, although of smaller sizes. That would seem to be a great place to focus these collection and conversion efforts.

[DanBC]

Except even in those places the density of plastic is very low.

> 200,000 pieces per square kilometer in the North Atlantic garbage patch.

> 4 particles per cubic meter in the Great Pacific garbage patch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_garbage_patch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

It's a serious problem, but it's one that requires people to stop using so much plastic; to make sure they re-use plastic; and to make sure that plastics are recycled after use.

Microbeads in cosmetics and microfibres from clothing are a huge problem.

[snarf21]

Microbeads in cosmetics and microfibres from clothing are a huge problem.

So much this and I don't know that we really have an answer to fix this. This micro things are toxic to the entire aquatic ecosystem.

[kwhitefoot]

Part of the answer is simply to stop using non-biodegradable stuff in cosmetics.

It isn't difficult to do. All that is needed is an incentive like making inclusion of plastic micro-beads illegal. Isn't California considering doing that?

[snarf21]

Wow, that is encouraging. I hope that is true and gets passed. It could mean the end of yoga pants (they are good and bad) so I'm not sure how I feel about this. :)