Is the garbage patch really an island?
No. The phrase “island of trash” is another visual metaphor. Instead, the garbage patch is “soup” of broken down plastic bits. Because plastic never biodegrades but only photodegrades into small and smaller bits called “microplastics,” the garbage patch is more accurately a “soup” of broken-down plastic bits. n fact, in the Pacific Garbage Patch, plastic outnumbers plankton 40 to 1. These plastic bits usually don’t float, but rather suspend in the water column down to 90 feet in depth.
