Technologies

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: The Floating Islands of Trash Three Times the Size of France

The Pacific Ocean has two large gyres filled with trash, and it’s coming from us.

As plastic waste continues to grow, so does the trash that’s accumulating in the Pacific Ocean. Two huge floating islands of garbage are taking up hundreds of thousands of square miles of real estate in what’s known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The vortices of garbage in the Pacific harm marine life as well as the environment, exacerbating human-caused climate change. The effects of climate change have been widespread and mounting, including melting of polar ice, rising sea levels and extreme weather. Many efforts are underway to address the issues, from international agreements coming out of the UN’s COP conferences to individual choices like switching to solar energy, but much remains to be done.

While climate change is largely caused by human-made greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy — with the top three emitters worldwide being China, the US and the EU — microplastics and trash in our oceans do contribute to the climate crisis.

Ocean plastic damages air quality, pollutes the atmosphere and contributes to global warming, according to Iberdrola, a multinational electric utility.

Sunlight and heat cause plastic to release powerful greenhouse gasses. The WWF says as the planet gets hotter, the plastic breaks down into methane and ethylene, which increases the rate of climate change.

Chemical components and legacy pollutants also absorb into the plastic marine animals are eating, Nancy Wallace, director of the Marine Debris Program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told CNET.

It’s why environmental nonprofit Ocean Cleanup is working to clear the mess out. From August 2021 through August 2023, the Ocean Cleanup deployed Jenny (System 002), its first large-scale cleaning system. Over its two-year span, it cleared out more than 623,439 pounds of trash. The crew launched its newest cleaning system, System 03, in late August 2023.

Addressing the climate crisis requires reducing pollution in the oceans, which accumulate an additional 14 million tons of plastic yearly.

Here’s what you need to know about the islands of trash in the Pacific Ocean, and how you can help with the cleanup.

Where is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

The garbage patch is two vortices filled with trash in the Pacific Ocean. The two whirlpools of human detritus are known as the Western Garbage Patch (closer to Japan) and the Eastern Garbage Patch (closer to California and Mexico).

They’re also known as gyres, which is when two ocean currents come together and create a hurricane-like current, Wallace said. Materials then get caught in the gyres.

While you may think the patches are solid masses of tangled plastic, they’re actually dispersed across hundreds of miles of the Pacific. You could sail through the patches without even noticing you’re in them. This is because as much as 70% of the trash eventually sinks to the bottom of the ocean, Wallace said, and more evidence shows it sinks into a water column, which is why it’s not all on the surface.

How large is the garbage patch?

The Ocean Cleanup estimates that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch occupies 1.6 million square kilometers, about twice the size of Texas, or three times the size of France. It’s estimated to span around 620,000 square miles.

However, the actual size of the island of trash is unknown, since not all of the trash sits on top of the water, Wallace said, and it’s a moving target due to waves and wind. It does, however, stay within a specific area due to ocean currents.

How much trash is in the garbage patch?

There’s an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of trash in the garbage patch, according to Conservation.org, which also projects that by 2050, the mass of ocean trash from plastic will outweigh its fish.

During its sampling, the Ocean Cleanup said it found more than 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch, weighing an estimated 80,000 tons. The organization said that number is a midrange value, and its calculations estimated that it may range from 1.1 to 3.6 trillion pieces.

At least 11 million tons of plastic enter all the oceans each year, and ocean-borne plastic is forecast to double by 2030, according to the Ocean Conservancy.

What kind of garbage is in the mounds of ocean trash?

Most of the trash comes from land in North America and Asia, like plastic bottles and straws that have found their way into the ocean. Trash can eventually make its way into the ocean from land-based sources, such as rivers, storm water and littering.

However, 20% comes from boats or ships that discard debris into the ocean, including lost fishing gear, according to the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.

trash collected by the Ocean Cleanup's System 03

How does the garbage affect marine life?

You’ve likely seen photos of sea turtles and whales with fishing nets tangled around their bodies and shells. This is just one terrible effect that human-generated debris has on marine life.

Animals in the ocean can also ingest the plastic debris, which can harm their digestive tracts and make them feel as though they’re full, Wallace said. This results in the animals not eating the food they need to survive. The plastic could also lacerate their organs.

Microplastics can also damage the ocean

Microplastics are less than 5 millimeters long and come from larger debris that breaks down into smaller pieces, so they’re much harder to filter out. These small plastics can likewise pose a threat to aquatic animals as they ingest the debris.

But can eating fish that have consumed these microplastics hurt humans? Ocean Cleanup says when animals eat the plastics containing chemicals, there’s a possibility the chemicals could eventually make their way up the food chain to people.

What’s being done to clean up the ocean trash?

Groups are working to prevent more trash from ending up in the garbage patches by reducing the number of single-use products, such as bottles and straws. There are also people working on cleanup and removal of debris on or near the shore, because it’s easier to get land trash picked up.

Other groups are looking at doing open ocean cleanup to collect debris like fishing gear and other smaller pieces that are floating around, but there are some challenges since the Pacific Ocean is so big and deep.

Organizations like the WWF and Ocean Conservancy are also working closely with partners to focus on standardized regulations for businesses that regularly use plastic or that design products made primarily from plastic, Wallace said.

Stanley Cup and water bottle disassembled on counter

What can I do to help clean up ocean trash?

While a lot of the garbage is being produced by big corporations and dumped by ships, there are some things you can do on a personal level to help.

Avoid adding to the problem. For instance, stop littering and start using reusable water bottles and shopping bags instead of single-serve plastic bottles or plastic bags that can easily wind up in waterways.
If you live near an ocean, volunteer to help clean the shoreline to help remove debris on shores.
If you don’t live near an ocean, you can help clean up parks, local neighborhoods, stormwater drains and other waterways, as trash in those areas can eventually end up in marine environments.
Donate to different organizations that support removing the trash, such as Ocean Conservancy and Oceana.
Shop at companies that are working toward sustainability. They’ll typically have this info listed on their website — for instance, Amazon has a sustainability page with its goals.
Vote in elections to support people in all levels of the government who advocate policies addressing climate change, including writing letters and making phone calls to your senators.

For more information, here’s what a carbon footprint is and if yours matters. Also, climate denial is evolving on YouTube — here’s how to make sense of it.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 7 #706

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Feb. 7, No. 706.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is especially tricky, as a variety of words could fit the theme. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Boo-o-o-o-ring

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Zzzz… not very exciting.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

HIND, DATE, DRUM, MOST, CHIN, PAIN, RAIN, NOSE, TOME, TOMES

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

DULL, DREARY, HUMDRUM, MUNDANE, TIRESOME

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is WATCHINGPAINTDRY. To find it, start with the W that’s three letters up from the bottom on the far-left row, and wind up, across and down.

Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.

#1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

Technologies

Spotify Launches ‘About the Song’ Beta to Reveal Stories Behind the Music

The stories are told on swipeable cards as you listen to the song.

Did you know Chappell Roan drew inspiration for her hit song Pink Pony Club from The Pink Cadillac, the name of a hot-pink strip club in her Missouri hometown? Or that Fountains of Wayne’s song Stacy’s Mom was inspired by a confessed crush a friend had on the late co-founder Adam Schlesinger’s grandmother?

If you’re a fan of knowing juicy little tidbits about popular songs, you might find more trivia in About the Song, a new feature from streaming giant Spotify that’s kind of like the old VH1 show Pop-Up Video.

About the Song is available in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia, initially for Spotify Premium members only. It’s only on certain songs, but it will likely keep rolling out to more music. Music facts are sourced from a variety of websites and summarized by AI, and appear below the song’s lyrics when you’re playing a particular song.

«Music fans know the feeling: A song stops you in your tracks, and you immediately want to know more. What inspired it, and what’s the meaning behind it? We believe that understanding the craft and context behind a song can deepen your connection to the music you love,» Spotify wrote in a blog post.

While this version of the feature is new, it’s not the first time Spotify has featured fun facts about the music it plays. The streaming giant partnered with Genius a decade ago for Behind the Lyrics, which included themed playlists with factoids and trivia about each song. Spotify kept this up for a few years before canceling due to multiple controversies, including Paramore’s Hayley Williams blasting Genius for using inaccurate and outdated information.

Spotify soon started testing its Storyline feature, which featured fun facts about songs in a limited capacity for some users, but was never released as a central feature.

About the Song is the latest in a long string of announcements from Spotify, including a Page Match feature that lets you seamlessly switch to an audiobook from a physical book, and an AI tool that creates playlists for you. Spotify also recently announced that it’ll start selling physical books.

How to use About the Song

If you’re a Spotify Premium user, the feature should be available the next time you listen to music on the app.

Start listening to any supported song.
Scroll down past the lyrics preview box to the About the Song box.
Swipe left and right to see more facts about the song.

I tried this with a few tracks, and was pleased to learn that it doesn’t just work for the most recent hits. Spotify’s card for Metallica’s 1986 song Master of Puppets notes the song’s surge in popularity after its cameo in a 2022 episode of Stranger Things. The second card discusses the band’s album art for Master of Puppets and how it was conceptualized.

To see how far support for the feature really went, I looked up a few tracks from off the beaten path, like NoFX’s The Decline and Ice Nine Kills’ Thank God It’s Friday. Spotify supported every track I personally checked.

There does appear to be a limit to the depth of the fun facts, which makes sense since not every song has a complicated story. For those songs, Spotify defaults to trivia about the album that features the music or an AI summary of the lyrics and what they might mean.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 7, #502

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Feb. 7, No. 502.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features a fun batch of categories. The purple one requires you to find hidden words inside some of the grid words, but they’re not too obscure. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Golden Gate.

Green group hint: It’s «Shotime!»

Blue group hint: Same first name.

Purple group hint: Tweak a team name.