A real live sea monster lives in the Pacific Ocean; and it eats fish, birds, dolphins and turtles alike.  But its favorite sustenance is the one that keeps it growing, something we mere mortals would never dare to eat: plastic.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (aka “the Vortex”) consumes a stretch of ocean about the size of the Indian subcontinent.  It is the final home of nearly all plastic wastes that don’t make it to the landfill.  As designated “disposable” plastics are molecularly unstable and especially in fluid such as ocean water, the packaging, lost beach toys, and drift nets that make up the vortex release their toxic chemicals at an extremely fast rate. 

But the plastic is still toxic until it… Biodegrades?  What a lovely thought.  While the more optimistic of conservationists will say a thousand, maybe a million years is enough time for the plastics to completely decompose, the wisest of us will tell you that plastic never decomposes–not ever.  (After all, what was it designed to do, again?)  Instead, sunlight causes the plastic to simply break into smaller and smaller fragments over time, eventually leaving the vortex for the open ocean in the form of lentil-sized fragments called mermaid’s tears, or nurdles.  The nurdles go on to be consumed by bottom-ranking members of the food chain, working their way up so that any direct or indirect consumer of seafood will one day be part plastic.

Contrary to what is easier to believe, the majority of this putrid flotsam is not from ships.  According to one study, only about 20% of the garbage in the vortex comes from accidents and illegal dumping.  That means that the remaining 80% is litter lost from dry land– negligent, the intentional, and the accidental.  So now the only thing to do is to disable the cycle from continuing.  Making the switch to bioplastics, real cellophane rather than the synthetic alternative, boycotting products employing excessive packaging, and not accepting plastic bags or water bottles are baby steps.  Cut up six-pack rings or anything else that may be an entanglement or choking hazard for marine life, or purchase individual cans.  Make sure any plastic you can not avoid consuming makes it securely into the recycling bin if possible or if not, the garbage, and will not blow out.

And the problem is so huge that there is no way it could ever possibly be reversed.  International efforts have been written off as too expensive, difficult or dangerous; the work would be a game of high-stakes safety poker that would inevitably cost billions of dollars.