How 5 Large Mega-Gyres Helped Create a "Galaxy of Garbage" in the Pacific

This story was originally published by CityLab and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. What's 1.6 million square kilometers, weighs 80,000 metric tons, and is three times the size of continental France? That would be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch--the enormous collection of detritus that floats in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Hawaii and California. Also known as the "GPGP," the patch's sprawl has made it notoriously difficult to measure. But a new study in the journal Scientific Reports has gathered the most comprehensive measurement yet.