VIDEO: A mass of plastic waste weighing more than 43 thousand cars floats in the Pacific

A large mass of garbage weighing more than the total weight of 43 thousand cars floats in the Pacific, twice the size of Texas. Scientists investigating the composition of this garbage pile discovered that it weighs 87 thousand tons, which is 16 times more than the initial estimate, and is made up of 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, reveals PBS.

The silver lining is that insights into individual pieces of plastic within the pile could be key to solving this problem. Plastic breaks down into small particles known as microplastics under the influence of heat and sunlight, therefore scientists concluded that it would only be possible to capture it using fine nets typically used for catching plankton.

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Setting up the net, which stretches from California to Hawaii, was not only labor-intensive, but the net failed to catch larger items such as bottles. Scientists attempted to count visible elements, but were only able to count a small portion. By extrapolating, they can develop a sense of the size of the garbage pile, but their final estimates vary drastically, especially for large pieces.

Plastic makes up 99.9 percent of the pile

Three years ago, the Ocean Cleanup foundation opted for a more direct approach, setting up 18 ships at various locations throughout the pile to which 652 nets were attached that can collect microplastics as well as larger pieces of garbage.

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An international team also studied data collected from an airplane flight, consisting of 7,300 photographs taken over nearly 200 square kilometers to better calculate the amount of large plastic pieces. They then used mathematical models and insights about ocean currents to create a range of estimates for the size of the pile. They discovered that the garbage patch extends over more than 900 thousand square kilometers of the northern Pacific Ocean, and the garbage consists of 99.9 percent plastic.

The garbage comes from Asia

Although the 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic may seem like a shocking amount, oceanographer Laurent Lebreton from the foundation emphasizes that the composition of the garbage pile is actually shocking data. Microplastics make up 94 percent of the total amount of plastic in the pile, but only account for eight percent of the mass. This means that the pile is full of large pieces predominantly made of hard plastics, such as plastic containers, bottles, caps, buckets, ropes, and fishing nets, half of whose composition is plastic.

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Large and medium pieces of plastic larger than 5 centimeters, known as macro and mega plastics, make up more than 75 percent of the total mass. Most of the garbage in the pile originated in Asia, primarily China and Japan, and the oldest found piece dates back to 1977.

Sudden increase in the amount of microplastics

The discovery about the size and quantity of plastic waste can help engineers design solutions for collecting plastic. By using data, progress in cleaning can be tracked, and by comparing data with previous studies, it was found that the concentration of microplastics in the pile has sharply increased, tripling since the 1970s.

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This summer, the foundation will lead an expedition to remove that pile of plastic from the sea, hoping to remove at least 50 percent of the pile from the ocean in the next 5 years. The project will cost about 370 million dollars, and they intend to finance it through the sale of corporate sponsorships.

Unfortunately, even if they succeed in cleaning the entire pile, the oceans will still be polluted with plastic. Four giant garbage patches exist in the South Pacific, North and South Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean.