Reply #30: Think of it as the result of a giant whirlpool [View All]

[HamdenRice]

All the floating plastic garbage in the ocean -- from ship dumping, from sewage, from run-off, etc., is blown by the wind. The prevailing currents in the Pacific taken together create a whirl pattern that eventually causes much of the floating garbage to accumulate in the center of the whirl.

There have been natural equivalents. For example, the sargasso sea is part of the Atlantic where currents cause vast amounts of sea weed to accumulate.