In the middle of the Pacific Ocean is a floating garbage dump the size of Africa. Its scientific name is the Pacific central gyre, but it's better known as the Pacific garbage patch - 25 million square kilometres of flotsam pushed along by a spiralling current into the centre of the world's largest ocean. Anything that floats ends up there, and most of it is plastic.
It can take up to a dozen years for debris dumped or washed into the sea to reach the gyre, and during that time natural products break down. But plastic does not, and the result is a raft of plastic waste the size of a continent.
In a recent voyage to the centre of the patch, the oceanographic research vessel Alguita found sea creatures tangled in discarded plastic fishing line and netting or with plastic fragments in their bellies.
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