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.

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.

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 Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Oct. 22

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 22.

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

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s one of those with absolutely no empty spaces, just a grid of letters, which means if you correctly answer all the Across answers, you’ve solved the Down answers, too. Need help? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Roomful of students
Answer: CLASS

6A clue: Something to bring in a brown paper bag
Answer: LUNCH

7A clue: __ Harbor, sightseeing area of Baltimore
Answer: INNER

8A clue: Where many Stephen King novels are set
Answer: MAINE

9A clue: Beagle or bulldog
Answer: BREED

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Go bouldering, e.g.
Answer: CLIMB

2D clue: ___ New Year
Answer: LUNAR

3D clue: Redhead of musical/movie fame
Answer: ANNIE

4D clue: Something an actor might steal
Answer: SCENE

5D clue: Tear to pieces
Answer: SHRED

Technologies

These Small Tweaks Can Give Your Old Android a Big Speed Boost

Instead of buying a new phone, try clearing some space, updating your software and changing a few battery settings.

If your Android is a few years old and starting to feel sluggish, it doesn’t mean you have to rush out and buy the newest flagship model. Thanks to longer software support from brands like Google and Samsung, older models can still run smoothly, as long as you give them a little attention.

Before you start shopping for a replacement, try a few simple adjustments. You might be surprised by how much faster your phone feels once you clear out unused apps, optimize battery use and turn off background drains.

Whether you use a Samsung Galaxy, Motorola or OnePlus phone, chances are you can still improve battery life and overall speed without buying something new. Just remember that Android settings vary slightly from brand to brand, so the menus may look a little different depending on your phone.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Settings to improve your battery life

Living with a phone that has poor battery life can be infuriating, but there are some steps you can take to maximize each charge right from the very beginning:

1. Turn off auto screen brightness or adaptive brightness and set the brightness level slider to under 50%

The brighter your screen, the more battery power it uses.

To get to the setting, pull down the shortcut menu from the top of the screen and adjust the slider, if it’s there. Some phones may have a toggle for auto brightness in the shortcut panel; otherwise, you need to open the settings app and search for «brightness» to find the setting and turn it off.

2. Use Adaptive Battery and Battery Optimization

These features focus on learning how you use your phone, including which apps you use and when, and then optimizing the apps and the amount of battery they use.

Some Android phones have a dedicated Battery section in the Settings app, while other phones (looking at you, Samsung) bury these settings. It’s a little different for each phone. I recommend opening your settings and searching for «battery» to find the right screen. Your phone may also have an adaptive charging setting that can monitor how quickly your phone battery charges overnight to preserve its health.

Why you should use dark mode more often

Another way to improve battery life while also helping save your eyes is to use Android’s dedicated dark mode. Any Android phone running Android 10 or newer will have a dedicated dark mode option.

According to Google, dark mode not only reduces the strain that smartphone displays cause on our eyes but also improves battery life because it takes less power to display dark backgrounds on OLED displays (used in most flagship phones) than a white background.

Depending on which version of Android your phone is running, and what company made your phone, you may have to dig around the settings app to find a dark mode. If your phone runs Android 10 or newer, you’ll be able to turn on system-wide dark mode. If it runs Android 9, don’t despair. Plenty of apps have their own dark mode option in the settings that you can use, whether or not you have Android 10.

To turn it on dark mode, open the Settings app and search for Dark Mode, Dark Theme or even Night Mode (as Samsung likes to call it). I suggest using dark mode all the time, but if you’re not sure, you can always set dark mode to automatically turn on based on a schedule, say from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. every day, or allow it to automatically switch based on your location at sunset and sunrise.

Keep your home screen free of clutter

Planning to hit up the Google Play Store for a bunch of new Android apps? Be prepared for a lot of icon clutter on your home screen, which is where shortcuts land every time you install something.

If you don’t want that, there’s a simple way out of this: Long-press on an empty area of your home screen and tap Settings. Find the option labeled something along the lines of Add icon to Home Screen or Add new apps to Home Screen and turn it off.

Presto! No more icons on the home screen when you install new apps. You can still add shortcuts by dragging an app’s icon out of the app drawer, but they won’t appear on your home screen unless you want them to.

Read more: Best Android Phones You Can Buy in 2024

Set up Do Not Disturb so that you can better focus

If your phone routinely spends the night on your nightstand, you probably don’t want it beeping or buzzing every time there’s a call, message or Facebook alert — especially when you’re trying to sleep. Android offers a Do Not Disturb mode that will keep the phone more or less silent during designated hours. On some phones, this is referred to as the Downtime setting or even Quiet Time.

Head to Settings > Sounds (or Notifications), then look for Do Not Disturb or a similar name. If you can’t find it, search for it using the built-in search feature in your settings.

Using the feature, you can set up a range of hours when you want to turn off the digital noise. Don’t worry, any notifications you get while Do Not Disturb is turned on will still be waiting for you when you wake up. Also, you can typically make an exception that allows repeat callers and favorite contacts’ calls to go through. Turn that on. If someone is calling you in an emergency, odds are they are going to keep trying.

Always be prepared in case you lose your phone or it’s stolen

Is there anything worse than a lost or stolen phone? Only the knowledge that you could have tracked it down if you had turned on Google’s Find My Device feature.

To prepare for a successful recovery, here’s what you need to do: Open the Settings app and then search for Find My Device. It’s usually in the Security section of the Settings app.

If you have a Samsung device, you can use Samsung’s Find My Mobile service, which is found in Settings > Biometrics and security > Find My Mobile.

Once that’s enabled, you can head to android.com/find from any PC or mobile device and sign in to your account. Samsung users can visit findmymobile.samsung.com to find a lost phone.

If you have trouble setting any of this up, be sure to read our complete guide to finding a lost Android phone.

Assuming your phone is on and online, you should be able to see its location on a map. From there, you can make it ring, lock it, set a lock screen note to tell whoever has it how to get it back to you, or, worst-case scenario, remotely wipe the whole thing.

And always keep your phone up to date

As obvious as it may seem, a simple software update could fix bugs and other issues slowing down your Android device.

Before you download and install the latest software update, make sure your device is connected to Wi-Fi, or else this won’t work.

Now, open the Settings application and type in Update. You’ll then either see Software update or System update — choose either one. Then just download the software, wait for a few minutes and install it when it’s ready. Your Android device will reboot and install the latest software update available.

There’s a lot more to learn about a new phone. Here are the best ways to boost your cell signal, and here’s a flagship phone head-to-head comparison. Plus, check out CNET’s list of the best cases for your Samsung phone. More of an Apple fan? We have tips for boosting your iPhone’s performance, too.

Technologies

I’m Finally Using the iPhone 17 Pro’s Camera Control, Thanks to These iOS 26 Settings

In just a month, I’ve already used Camera Control on my iPhone 17 Pro Max more than I did in a whole year with the iPhone 16 Pro.

I was keen on using the Camera Control button when it first debuted on the iPhone 16 Pro. But in over a year of use, it caused more accidental swipes and presses than its intended use cases to take photos and adjust camera settings. I was frustrated with the experience and hoped that Apple would remove it from the iPhone 17 lineup. Instead, the Cupertino, California-based company made its touch-sensitive capacitive control surface more customizable with iOS 26. And I’m happy to report that it helped!

I’ve been using the iPhone 17 Pro since launch and spent 5 to 10 minutes customizing the Camera Control to my liking. The result? Minimized accidental swipes and more conscious usability.

I transformed my Camera Control experience by changing a few iOS 26 settings

When setting up a new iOS 26-supported iPhone, Apple includes a toggle (now turned off by default) called Light press to adjust Zoom, Exposure and more. This is what used to cause a lot of fake input earlier. I’m glad it is turned off by default.

Apple now also lets you customize the Camera Control further from the Settings menu. I tweaked settings there to personalize my shortcuts, functionalities and more.

For example, I’ve set the Camera Control to launch a Code Scanner on Double Click without requiring the screen to be on. This allows me to scan and pay at payment kiosks (my most frequently used mode of payment) without needing to open the payment app and then tap on a menu to scan a code. If I enter the Code Scanner without Face ID, it requires authentication before making the payment, so it is still as secure as ever.

Earlier, I had set an Action Button shortcut to open Google Pay, but I realized I still need a one-press solution to turn the phone to silent mode. Adding a Code Scanner shortcut to Camera Control frees the Action Button to be my Silent Switch again. Moreover, Code Scanner lets you select from multiple apps to pay a vendor, which could be useful for people who use multiple payment apps.

Secondly, I have turned off the Swipe gesture and selected only three controls that I use most often. Now, when I open the Camera app, I can lightly press on the Camera Control button and then swipe between my selected controls. It doesn’t register swipes from the get-go. This has reduced fake touches and my frustrating experience with the swipe gesture.

To further streamline my controls, I chose Exposure, Styles and Tone, and left out Depth, Zoom and Cameras. This way, I have access to hidden viewfinder settings with a single press-and-swipe gesture at my fingertips.

I also turned off the Clean Preview toggle, so I can still switch between cameras with a single tap, and switched on the Lock Focus and Exposure toggle for a light press-and-hold gesture.

Customizing these settings helped me personalize Camera Control and use it more often. Now, it appeals to me with the settings I need and the way I need them, instead of being an overcrowded mess. And you can personalize your Camera Control, too. Here’s how:

Change Camera Control launch functionality

You can use Camera Control as another Action Button to launch an app of your choice. The only requirement is that the app should have access to the camera.

Go to Settings > Camera > Camera Control.
Under Launch Camera, select the app you need.
Go back and select Single Click or Double Click to open the said app.

I rely on Double Click so I don’t accidentally trigger an app when taking out the iPhone from my pocket. In my opinion, it is the safer and more convenient choice.

Under the same Launch Camera menu, you can also choose if you want the screen to be on or off when opening the app. I have turned it off to save the extra step of scanning my face to access the said app.

Choose the Controls that you want to appear on Camera Control

Apple allows you to choose from six controls, namely, Exposure, Depth, Zoom, Cameras, Styles and Tone. I have chosen three because the other three are available as on-screen toggles in the viewfinder.

Go to Settings > Camera > Camera Control.
Under Controls, make sure Camera Adjustments is turned on.
Tap on Customize.
Under Gesture, turn on Light Press and toggle off Swipe.
Under Controls, choose the functionalities you need.
Now, turn off the Clean Preview toggle if you require the viewfinder toggles to remain accessible.

You can further adjust the Camera Control pressure by going into Settings> Camera > Camera Control > Accessibility.

Turn on Lock Exposure and Focus with Camera Control

This setting will help you lock the exposure and focus without needing to press and hold on the viewfinder. It can be beneficial when you need consistent settings, especially when moving the camera from one subject to another.

Go to Settings > Camera > Camera Control.
Swipe down to Lock Exposure and Focus.
Tap on the toggle to turn it on.

For me, Camera Control was a hot mess when it debuted last year because I was either using on-screen controls or the new button. That’s why room for more personalization and customizability has been a game-changer. I realized I could access on-screen toggles while adding hidden settings to one-tap access. On my iPhone 17 Pro, I now use the Camera Control to open my payments app, adjust Exposure and Styles as well as trigger Visual Intelligence when needed.