Sad Picture: No one to blame for this but ourselves. Four fifths of the plastic detritus floating over 2.5 million square miles of ocean surface arrives there from land-based run off: from stormwater, in other words: litter.

Sadly - many people take the "out of sight, out of mind" approach.

Plastic contamination in the world's oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up.

We are damned to a future of pollution by plastic. All succeeding generations will only see an ocean filled with trash.

Net a piece of plastic, and you’ll find barnacles and small crabs clinging to it. Not a good thing for fish, birds, and mammals that mistake it for its natural food, such as eggs, jellyfish, or other sea creatures.

Most of the plastic will eventually photo-degrade into small, dust-like particles to the point that it will be non-detectable to the human eye, but ingestible by sea mammals, birds, and fish—many of which we then consume ourselves.

So disgusting

Thanks for this clip, will read the full article later.

Keep putting up this story--I have clipped it or similar twice until people get the message---use canvas shopping bags and recycle all plastic and glass, paper, etc. --if it's not to late already--the ocean defiled is our legacy...shame.

I try to always double check to see if stories have already been clipped – but this one I felt had to be put up again because the picture of the dead albatross on the beach was so heartbreaking, that I had to share. Also I think that you are right to keep pushing the issue until more people start to take some action or at least wake up to this horrible attack on our environment that WE caused. Thanks for the support!

Yes civilization moves forward at the speed of dumb

There is hope regarding this issue. www.gotgreencups.com is working to educate and promote awareness of the trash vortex issues.