Of the millions of metric tons of plastic that enter the ocean each year, researchers don’t yet know exactly where it all ends up. Some of the trash makes it to swirling gyres like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is now thought to be roughly three times the size of France. Some of it is eaten by baby seabirds or whales (when a whale recently died on a beach in Thailand, the autopsy found around 17 pounds of plastic inside the animal). Some of it sinks down to rest on the ocean floor. But one researcher studying ocean plastic says that scientists don’t know the location of around 99% of the waste.
Image: courtesy Anna Du
