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Plastic Pollution Threat:
- Considered one of the biggest threats to oceans today.
- The Ocean Cleanup aims to solve plastic pollution with advanced research.
Research on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch:
- Largest accumulation zone of ocean plastic, studied since the 1970s.
- Previous methods used small sampling nets, deemed valid only for small debris.
Mega Expedition:
- Launched summer of 2015 with 30 boats to efficiently cross the garbage patch.
- Utilized multiple small nets and two giant trawls towed by a mother ship.
- Collected 1,200,000 plastic samples, a monumental task requiring 2 years of lab technician work to hand count, identify, and classify each sample.
Aerial Surveys for Larger Debris:
- Largest debris required 20 times the area covered by the mega expedition.
- Conducted the first aerial surveys using a modified military aircraft as a high-tech research platform.
- Equipped with advanced sensors to reconstruct 3D shapes of large debris for mass calculation.
Key Findings:
- A comprehensive understanding of larger debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is necessary for effective cleanup.

Size and Statistic Overview:
- Covers an area of 1,600,000 square kilometers (3 times the size of France).
- Contains approximately 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, averaging 250 pieces for every human.
- Total mass estimated at 80,000 tons, 4 to 16 times greater than earlier estimates.
Composition of Debris:
- 92% of the mass comprises larger objects that will fragment into harmful microplastics over decades under solar and wave action.
Increasing Pollution:
- Findings indicate a growing trend in pollution, making natural reduction far less likely.
- These results establish a new baseline for addressing plastic pollution and inform future cleanup efforts.
Future Cleanup Goals:
- The official cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is slated to begin in 2018.