The term, "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" conjures images of floating trash, easily visible -- lots of bags and cans and bottles floating around. So, naturally, people think that it can be photographed.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. Instead, the "garbage" is small particulate matter floating just beneath the surface. It is the result of large, visible garbage disintegrating into smaller and smaller pieces. Some of the more graphic accounts of dangers to wildlife involve animals swallowing whole bottle caps and other debris, which is not able to be processed and pass through the digestive system, and the animal dies some gruesome death because it cannot keep enough food in its stomach.

Those stories are not to be discounted, but the real issue is the (often toxic) plastics getting into the bloodstream of marine animals and eventually working its way back up the food stream to the food we eat (fish).

I applaud your curiosity and determination to "get to the bottom" of the pacific garbage patch issue, but in controversial issues, clear evidence seldom comes in the form of a photograph.