Floating out in the Pacific Ocean is ‘The Great Pacific Garbage Patch’. It is an island comprised of 80% plastic and weighing an estimated 3.5 million tons. Twice the size of Texas and growing tenfold every decade since the 1950s, it is so big that there is virtually no way to clean it up. Due to a confluence of winds and ocean currents, much of the world's garbage eventually ends up here, seriously endangering birds and sea life. The only way to prevent it from growing any larger is to stop the use of plastics and prevent waste from entering the environment in the first place. (The Land of Flotsam and Jetsam, Waste Age; May 2008, Vol. 39 Issue 5)

All that glitters is not plankton in Time South Pacific (Australia/New Zealand edition); 12/22/97 Issue 57, described the death of a 70-ton male Fin Whale, aged between 8 and 12 years old, who was found beached on the northern coast of Spain. The autopsy identified a compressed ball made up of more than 20 kg of plastics. Biologists suggest the ball blocked the whale's pylorus, the circular opening leading to the intestines, meaning it could not properly absorb food. Seals, dolphins, whales and other large sea creatures have also been found overdosed on plastic detritus.

Charles Moore, a leading figure in the plastic marine pollution debate found that there was six times as much plastic as plankton, by weight in parts of the Pacific Ocean. He and his all-volunteer crew counted roughly a million pieces of plastic per square mile, almost all of it less than a few millimeters across. Moore said there is no question that the volume of plastic in the waters harms marine life, killing 100,000 animals a year. (Moore checks the effect of plastics on marine life in Plastic News; 9/12/2005, Vol. 12 Issue 30.)

New research from the University of Tokyo shows that plastics in the water can absorb toxic chemicals such as PCBs and DDE, a breakdown product of the notorious insecticide DDT. Moore suggests that the toxins ingested on plastics may work their way through the food web. An international convention called MARPOL bans the dumping of plastics at sea, but enforcement on the open ocean is nonexistent. The best solution would be to stop using plastic altogether but this would be difficult to achieve. However, the use of plastic bags can be stopped with a simple change in consumer behaviour and wider use of reusable bags.