The Overwhelming Amount of Plastic in the Ocean Isn't What You Think

We don't seem to know a lot about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The Ocean Cleanup published a study in the journal Scientific Reports last week that found that the patch doesn't appear to be made up of plastic straws and other items. They found that most of the debris came from fishing nets and ropes.

Roughly a third of the items were unidentifiable, according to the org. Most of the other two-thirds were dominated by objects used in fishing, such as floats, buoy, crates, buckets, baskets, containers, drums, jerry cans, fish boxes, and eel traps.

Hook, Line and Sinker

Activists claim that holding corporations accountable for pollution is a better way to prevent trash from ending up in the ocean.

Not everyone is on board with The Ocean Cleanup's methods, and some scientists have said in the past that their plastic collections methods were not effective.

There are likely to be disagreements on methodology with such a large problem. New information could be used to inform anti-pollution policies if the group is correct about commercial fishing destroying natural habitats.

A man was sentenced to prison for dumping toxic pollution into the ocean.