Ocean cleanup group removes record 25,000 pounds of trash from Great Pacific Garbage Patch in one extraction

During the week-long journey from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch back to port, the trash gets sorted on the ship, and the nonprofit recycles as much material as possible.

The nonprofit then works with partners worldwide to ensure that the products made with the recycled plastic are not ones that will end up back in oceans or rivers, Tobin said, adding that one of those partnerships is with a Korean car manufacturer that uses the plastics in the construction of electric vehicles.

"We just want to make sure it doesn't end up back where we found it," Tobin said.

The root cause being a lot of underdeveloped countries just dump into rivers and streams. Which just float out to the oceans. We need world govs. To step in and fix the way they dispose of their trash. This is a good start though.

(from Bard, I'm not sure this math is mathing.. )

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is estimated to be twice the size of Texas, or about 1.6 million square kilometers. If an ocean cleanup crew can clear a space the size of a football field every five seconds, it would take them:

(1.6 million square kilometers) / (1 football field per 5 seconds) * (3,600 seconds per hour) * 24 hours per day = 2,880,000 hours

So, it would take the ocean cleanup crew about 9.5 years to clear the garbage patch if they worked round the clock.

However, this is just a theoretical calculation. In reality, there are many factors that would affect the time it takes to clear the garbage patch, such as the efficiency of the cleanup crew, the amount of plastic in the patch, and the weather conditions. It is also important to note that the garbage patch is not a solid mass, but rather a collection of floating plastic debris. This means that the cleanup crew would need to spend time navigating through the patch and collecting the plastic.