The Mystery of the Missing Plastic in the Atlantic Garbage Patch

Earlier today we reported on scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution trying to answer the question, "Where'd all the oil in the Gulf go?" (At least some of it is floating around in giant plumes.) In the same issue of the journal Science released this afternoon, another team from Woods Hole tried to answer another pressing ocean question: "Where'd all the plastic in the Atlantic go?" We're referring to the great patch of plastic in the North Atlantic Gyre. You might have read the stories in DISCOVER and elsewhere about the more famous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a Texas-sized soup of tiny plastic pieces in the middle of that ocean. Circulating ocean currents create these gyres in several places around the world, and ocean-borne plastic gets trapped. The Woods Hole paper is the result of a two-decade study of the Atlantic patch that produced a surprising result: The amount in total plastic appears to have leveled off—at least according to the data. Humans haven't stopped putting plastic into the ocean, so what gives?