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Natural Awakenings Healthy Living Magazine

Monstrous Morass

Great Pacific Garbage Patch Out of Control

In the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California, the 80,000-ton Great Pacific Garbage Patch is growing. Encompassing 600,000 square miles, the world’s largest such dump is twice the size of Texas, according to a three-year mapping effort by eight organizations. “To solve a problem, we need to understand it first,” says Boyan Slat, CEO of Dutch-based nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup.