The accumulated floating plastic known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 620,000 square miles — nearly twice the size of Texas. One group is trying to clean up the more than 100,000 tons of garbage, one football field of trash every five seconds. Since 2019, The Ocean Cleanup has been collecting the floating plastics for later recycling.
And with a new $15 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust — tied to World Ocean Day on June 8 — the group will continue its efforts to remove the garbage , a $189 million project that aims to ultimately remove 15 million pounds of plastic. Removing the plastics now helps prevent an " ecological time bomb " by not allowing these plastics to become microplastics, Matthias Egger, head of environmental and social affairs at the Ocean Cleanup, told CBS News. The marine life that consumes plastics can get eaten by larger prey which in turn can get eaten by humans who end up consuming those initial plastics at the beginning of the food web.
Microplastics are found everywhere now – from people's lungs to mother's breast milk . "We are very concerned with the amount of plastics in the ocean and the health risks that are posed from the plastics breaking down and getting into our food chain and eventually getting into our bodies," Walter Panzirer, a trustee at Helmsley which focuses on access to health care, told CBS News. "There's been several scientific studies showing the negative health outcomes of microplastics in the human bo.