Second great garbage patch found

Posted By Joshua Keating Thursday, April 15, 2010 - 1:41 PM Share

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch or Plastic Vortex, a Texas-sized gyre of plastic formed by ocean currents, has been known and well-documented for over a decade. But what about all the plastic in the Atlantic?

Researchers are warning of a new blight on the ocean: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over thousands of square miles (kilometers) in a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

The floating garbage - hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents - was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands.

Similar patches are thought to exist in the South Atlantic and South Pacific oceans.

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

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May 6, 2010

These grabage patches are not

These grabage patches are not what they are thought to be in the popular imagination. In fact, they are made up of tiny particles of plastic that will not degrade any further. If you were to visit, you would not see anything. However, it's the lack of abundant life in the area that you would notice.

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