44. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Texas is the largest state of them all, with a land mass that dwarfs many European countries. Despite that, it's still smaller than the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It's an entirely human-made floating mesh of debris and sludge that should make all of us ashamed of ourselves.

Right in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean is what's referred to as a gyre; a bulk of collected marine waste which has been formed by oceanic currents slowly delivering them all to the same point. It's so enormous that it's impossible even to know where to start in terms of trying to clean it all up, but it mostly comprises of non-degradable plastics, and chemical sludge jettisoned into the waters. It not only represents a potentially fatal threat to marine wildlife in the area, but it's also so thick and hazardous that it now poses a strategical problem to major shipping routes.

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