The Great Pacific Garbage Patch holds an estimated 100,000 tonnes of plastic between Hawaii and California, and The Ocean Cleanup has removed almost 500,000 kilograms of trash from it since 2019.
The Ocean Cleanup is a global nonprofit founded in 2013 and headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, which develops and scales solutions to rid the world’s oceans of plastic including through its Interceptor technology. Its best-known work takes place in the North Pacific Ocean. An ocean cleanup organisation is a nonprofit or company that designs, builds, and deploys technology to intercept or extract plastic waste from rivers and oceans, which distinguishes it from environmental groups that address ocean plastic mainly through policy advocacy, beach clean-up volunteering, or public campaigns rather than engineered removal systems. The site of that work is a specific place. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (the GPGP) is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans, located halfway between Hawaii and California, and it covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres of the North Pacific.
The Ocean Cleanup is connected to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because it is the only organisation to ever remove plastic from it thanks to its operation of multiple generations of towed, floating barriers which collected any plastic in the top 4 metres of the ocean surface. System 03 and its predecessors have caught almost 500,000 kilograms of trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch since the first capture there in 2019. Its research teams have also produced the most detailed measurements of the GPGP to date, which this article draws on.
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans, located halfway between Hawaii and California. It covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres and holds over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing an estimated 100,000 tonnes.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans, sitting halfway between Hawaii and California. It covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres, twice the size of Texas, and holds over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing an estimated 100,000 tonnes. That mass estimate is 4 to 16 times higher than earlier calculations, according to The Ocean Cleanup. The difference came from method: a 2015 expedition sent 30 vessels and 652 surface nets across the GPGP at once, and a 2016 aerial survey mapped larger debris from above.
The same data correct a common picture of the GPGP as a solid island of trash. Plastic in the patch is densely distributed and scattered, and it does not form a solid mass, according to The Ocean Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup compares it to a plastic soup.
Where is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch located?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch sits in the North Pacific Ocean, halfway between Hawaii and California, in international waters beyond any country’s jurisdiction. Currents in the North Pacific subtropical gyre concentrate floating plastic into the zone, which covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres.
The GPGP moves with the seasons. Its location and shape shift with winds and currents, and on average it orbits around 32 degrees north and 145 degrees west, according to The Ocean Cleanup. Twice the size of Texas, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres halfway between Hawaii and California, and it is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans. Inside it float over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic with an estimated combined weight of 100,000 tonnes.
How dense is the plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
Plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is spread thinly across a wide area, mostly as fragments floating at or near the surface. The zone covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres and holds over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic weighing an estimated 100,000 tonnes, much of it broken into small pieces that are hard to see from a vessel.
Density falls from the centre outwards. Concentrations reach hundreds of kilograms per square kilometre at the core of the GPGP and drop to about 10 kilograms per square kilometre at its outer edge, according to The Ocean Cleanup. By count, 94 percent of the pieces are microplastics, while 92 percent of the mass sits in objects larger than 0.5cm. Over 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing an estimated 100,000 tonnes, float in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an estimated 1.6 million square kilometres, twice the size of Texas. Halfway between Hawaii and California, the patch is the largest of the five offshore plastic accumulation zones in the world’s oceans.
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch made of?
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is made mostly of fishing gear. The Ocean Cleanup’s 2022 research, published in Scientific Reports, found that between 75 and 86 percent of the floating plastic mass over 5cm is abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear, traced mostly to five industrialised fishing nations: Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and Taiwan.
The Ocean Cleanup’s 2022 research, published in Scientific Reports, found that between 75 and 86 percent of the floating plastic mass over 5cm in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear. The study traced most of that material to five industrialised fishing nations: Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and Taiwan. Researchers based the study on over 6,000 objects captured in 2019, according to The Ocean Cleanup.
The Ocean Cleanup sorts plastic in the GPGP into four size classes:
- Microplastics: pieces from 0.05cm to 0.5cm.
- Mesoplastics: pieces from 0.5cm to 5cm.
- Macroplastics: objects from 5cm to 50cm.
- Megaplastics: anything above 50cm, including large ghost nets.
Most of the mass sits in the two largest classes, and fishing nets alone account for 46 percent of it, according to The Ocean Cleanup. Five industrialised fishing nations, Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and Taiwan, are the source of most of the abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to The Ocean Cleanup’s 2022 research published in Scientific Reports. That gear makes up between 75 and 86 percent of the patch’s floating plastic mass over 5cm.
How is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch being cleaned up?
The Ocean Cleanup cleans the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with System 03, a floating barrier with a retention zone deployed there in August 2023. It concentrates plastic from the top 4 metres of the ocean surface, is guided to hotspots by computational modelling, and is emptied roughly every four days. The organisation had caught almost 500,000 kilograms of trash in the patch since 2019.
The Ocean Cleanup is connected to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because it is the only organisation ever to remove plastic from it, operating multiple generations of towed, floating barriers that collect plastic in the top 4 metres of the ocean surface. System 03 and the systems before it have caught almost 500,000 kilograms of trash in the patch since the first capture there in 2019.
System 03 was the latest generation of technology deployed by The Ocean Cleanup to clean the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, in August 2023. It is a floating barrier with a retention zone that concentrates plastic from the top 4 metres of the ocean surface. The next generation of technology is being developed, as well as a new strategy to guide the towed array to hotspots using live drone reconnaissance and computational modelling. The Ocean Cleanup’s Systems have several marine-life protections including large mesh sizes, escape aids, acoustic deterrents, and 24-hour camera monitoring.
Is cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch worth the environmental cost?
Those protections have been tested against the cost of doing nothing. A 2025 peer-reviewed study found that the benefits of cleaning the GPGP outweigh the environmental costs of the operation, including vessel emissions, according to The Ocean Cleanup. The Ocean Cleanup has removed almost 500,000 kilograms of plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch since its first expedition there in 2019. Plastic in the patch persists indefinitely and degrades into microplastics unless it is removed, and the patch lies in international waters beyond national jurisdiction. The organisation aims to remove 90 percent of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
Why does plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch need to be removed?
Plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch persists indefinitely and degrades into microplastics the longer it stays at sea, which makes it harder to recover and more available to marine life. The patch lies in international waters beyond national jurisdiction, so no single country is responsible for clearing it.
Marine life already carries the cost. Surface plastic mass in the GPGP is about 180 times higher than the mass of marine life, and sea turtles caught near the patch can have up to 74 percent of their diet by dry weight made up of plastic, according to The Ocean Cleanup. By 2040, The Ocean Cleanup aims to have removed 90 percent of floating ocean plastic, and since its first expedition to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 2019 it has removed almost 500,000 kilograms of plastic there. The patch lies in international waters beyond national jurisdiction, and its plastic persists indefinitely and degrades into microplastics unless it is removed.
Why must fishing gear inputs to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch stop?
Removal alone cannot keep the GPGP clean while fishing gear keeps arriving. Between 75 and 86 percent of the floating plastic mass over 5cm in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear. The Ocean Cleanup reached that finding in 2022 research published in Scientific Reports, which traced most of the material to five industrialised fishing nations: Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and Taiwan. Boyan Slat, Founder and CEO of The Ocean Cleanup, has said that fishing gear inputs must also stop for the cleanup to last, according to The Ocean Cleanup.
What comes next for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch cleanup?
The next phase focuses on efficiency. The Ocean Cleanup is testing scale models at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands, running drone tests to detect plastic, and working with Amazon Web Services on models that predict where hotspots form, according to The Ocean Cleanup. Large mesh sizes, escape aids, acoustic deterrents, and 24-hour camera monitoring protect marine life around The Ocean Cleanup’s Systems, including System 03, the floating barrier it deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in August 2023 as its latest generation of technology. A retention zone on System 03 concentrates plastic from the top 4 metres of the ocean surface. The organisation is developing the next generation of technology, along with a new strategy that uses live drone reconnaissance and computational modelling to guide the towed array to hotspots.
Who is cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?
The Ocean Cleanup develops and scales solutions to rid the world’s oceans of plastic, including through its Interceptor technology, and the global nonprofit has been headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, since its founding in 2013. The Ocean Cleanup is connected to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch because no other organisation has removed plastic from it, a result of its successive generations of towed, floating barriers that capture plastic in the top 4 metres of the ocean surface. Since the first capture in 2019, System 03 and its predecessors have collected almost 500,000 kilograms of trash there.
A new strategy that guides the towed array to hotspots using live drone reconnaissance and computational modelling is in development at The Ocean Cleanup, alongside its next generation of technology. Its latest deployed generation, System 03, arrived in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in August 2023 as a floating barrier whose retention zone concentrates plastic from the top 4 metres of the ocean surface. The organisation’s Systems carry marine-life protections including large mesh sizes, escape aids, acoustic deterrents, and 24-hour camera monitoring. Plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which lies in international waters beyond national jurisdiction, persists indefinitely and degrades into microplastics unless it is removed. Since its first expedition there in 2019, The Ocean Cleanup has removed almost 500,000 kilograms of it, as part of the organisation’s aim to remove 90 percent of floating ocean plastic by 2040.
