I cant beleive the idiocy of the people willing to leave comments here. My favorite is James Dagg “….If there were such a thing we would have some image of it, there is none because it probably does not exsist. It is in fact a theory with very loose research behind it.”

I wonder how you feel about gravity. Is it real? you cant see it but people keep saying its what keeps you stuck to the ground. I bet your religious, can you see any proof of divinity or do you just blindly follow? The FACT of this matter is that Plastics don’t break down. they are an unnatural creation of man that are having adverse effects on the food chain, causing reproductive problems in HUMANS around the world. the idea that we are infallible in our creations is preposterous. as a species we find a solution to make our lives easyer without researching its effects on the environment we are stuck in.

I think the biggest problem we have is that critical thinking is a forgotten part of our society as a whole.

An area can easily be compared to a volume, it is a height x width x depth, no different than a piece of furniture occupies 3 dimensions. I am speaking of a confined area by comparing it to a recognizable feature. If I was to say that it encompasses a volume of xx cubic miles, I doubt all but a slim number of readers would know spatially what that looks like.

This is really a description of the affected area, but to get specific, given the density and average particle size, if you were to strain all the pieces out and lay them flat to create a solid surface, it would easily measure twice the size of the continental US or larger.

There is no ‘alarmist rhetoric’ here, only a practical illustration that is based on scientific research. If everything was described to a scientific specification, in scientific terms no one would understand anything except for the scientists themselves, and we already know what is going on.

An area cannot be compared to a volume. If we sliced a centimeter at a time from the volume of the floating “island” than you could just as easily say that its area is larger than the Earth itself. It simply does not make sense to say it is twice as large as the US unless you are assuming the US to be significantly less than 15 feet deep.

We can all learn from each other and you have done some respectable research. But when someone offers you a technical correction and you spout out a bunch of alarmist rhetoric, you are just as closed-minded and ignorant as anyone you are castigating. The world’s problems cannot be solved until we learn to listen and value being correct in what we say.

@Mergarthal – You are correct, and scientists do not call it an ‘island’ but they are attempting to put it into words that the world can understand and visualize. While it is not an ‘island’ you can go out and walk on, it is a huge collection of debris laying just below the surface, but that doesn’t fit on most press memos.