Shocking images show the world's biggest garbage dump as clean-up intensifies at fungus-infested site twice the size of Texas By Laura Parnaby For Dailymail.Com Published: 12:28 EDT, 23 June 2024 | Updated: 13:40 EDT, 23 June 2024 e-mail 29 View comments Shocking images have laid bare the world's biggest garbage dump - comprising 100,000 metric tons of everything from discarded fridges to children's toys. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch spans 620,000 square miles - an area twice the size of Texas - with the majority of trash coming from China , Japan , Korea and the US.
The aquatic trash-heap was first detected 1,200 miles west of California in 1997, and has since sprawled across the ocean - threatening marine life while releasing toxic microplastics into the atmosphere. However, since 2019, the Ocean Cleanup nonprofit has been on a mission to change this through an $189 million project aiming to conquer the artificial floater over the next 10 years. 'We're taking it out of the ocean while we still can,' the charity's head of environmental and social affairs Matthias Egger told DailyMail.
com. 'Really what we are doing is we are preventing an ecological time bomb.' Shocking drone footage has laid bare the world's biggest garbage dump from above - comprising 100,000 metric tons of everything from discarded fridges to children's toys Egger said Ocean Cleanup was dreamt up by scuba diver Boyan Slat several years ago, who founded the nonprofit after becoming frustrated by finding .