4 ms·

It always blows my mind that we can still "discover" something as large as Mexico on our planet that nobody previously knew about.

• hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
  Because it's not really something as big as Mexico. As stated in the article, these "plastic patches" aren't a big visible dump of plastic in the ocean. If you seem through it, you wouldn't know it was different from the rest of the ocean. It's basically a large area of the ocean with a significant concentration of microscopic plastic higher than the rest of the ocean.
  • iainmerrick 9y ago
    Well, it may not be very dense, but... It's still big, right?
    • dogma1138 9y ago
      Yes but it's not like you would notice it unless you filter the water. It's bad but if you would be sailing through that patch you wouldn't notice a damn thing. If you are a fish on the other hand you would probably not like it very much.
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  • Retric 9y ago
    You will find plenty of pieces that are several inches wide, along with large numbers in the cm size range. https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/garbage-island/563b9c912aab5c416bc75039 https://video.vice.com/en_us/video/garbage-island/563b9c912a... Further, it's not about people. Fish gills for example are designed to filter a lot of water so fish do encounter a lot of plastic.
    • hn_throwaway_99 9y ago
      The video you posted is over an hour long. Is there a timestamp with the content relevant to having large pieces of plastic?
      • Retric 9y ago
        Watch the first five minutes ish.
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