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We know that at the heart of at least two ocean basins--the North Pacific and the North Atlantic--tiny plastic fragments the size of confetti or smaller are accumulating on the sea surface by the tens of thousands, the remnants of discarded grocery bags, cups, bottles and other waste. Last year a group of researchers publishing in the journal Science reported a mystery: during a 22-year survey of plastic accumulation in the western North Atlantic, the scientists saw no increase in the amount of plastic, despite a surge in annual global plastic production from about 75 million to 245 million metric tons over the same period. Where was it going

Alright, let’s see how well you do on this quick test. Can you guess which sample came from the North Pacific Garbage Patch and which came from the South Pacific Ocean?

In Moby Duck , Donovan Hohn tracks the fate of 28,000 plastic bath toys (“rubber” ducks, frogs, turtles and beavers) across the Northwest Coast to their origins in China and even through the North West Passage. But how did these bath toys come to be spread on the shores of Alaska, Washington, Hawaii and Russia? On January 10th 1992, the Ever Laurel, a large container cargo ship, was caught in a storm in the North Pacific with severe waves rolling her from side to side.

The first indication that our expedition was not going as planned was the abrupt sputter and stop of the boat’s inboard engine at 2 a.m.