[ronaldx]

I think this is a simplification which overlooks the parent point.

It seems reasonable that the gyres have always collected crap and sealife has avoided it. Now that crap is plastic.

But, the gyre already provides the function of avoid-getting-killed-by-plastic, so it's not clear why we should aggressively reduplicate that effort.

The garbage patch may offer benefits to the ecosystem which are not immediately obvious. Whereas, filtering is likely to damage the ecosystem in some ways.

Human record of tending to the ocean has not been very good and we're not good at predicting consequences. I recommend watching documentary film "The End of the Line" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1176727/ before assuming that filtering is a panacea.

[guard-of-terra]

The idea is not to duplicate gyres, rather supplement those with cleanup.

Gyres collect it, we harvest it on the spot.