In the north Pacific Ocean, a huge clockwise-churning vortex stretches from the equator up to southern Canada.
According to HuffPost, within the massive gyre is an ever-growing swell of trash known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
But it's not a cohesive patch, exactly, or one island-like accumulation of debris.
Clumps of plastic bottles, abandoned fishing gear and beer crates are scattered across the expanse of ocean from Japan to California.
There's an estimated 88,000 tons of artificial debris in the eastern stretch of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Nearly half of the waste is discarded fishing gear, in which marine animals can become fatally entangled.
Eventually, the sun breaks the garbage down into tiny particles. Such microplastics are also an increasingly significant source of pollution.
One estimate from NOAA's Marine Debris Program says it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than 1% of the waste.