This topic came up with me and a friend recently, and I thought I might share it as the environment is an important thing to me (it is what I study after all.) The problem was how the Pacific Trash Vortex is presented in the series Great Pacific, and its sci fi like treatment. I initially had higher hopes for this series as it was going to deal with an environmental issues, but almost from the first moment I knew that something was wrong. It is essentially comes down to understanding degrees of scale. The Pacific Trash Vortex doesn't look like much, because it is still primarily water, the only problem is that it isn't only water. It is like in the asteroid field. We have this impression of the asteroid field being what it is like in Empire Strikes Back with the Aluminum Falcon dodging asteroids left and right while trying to escape from the Imperial Fleet. Nice visual sure, but in reality in our own asteroid field in our own solar system, if you were to stand on one of the larger rocks, you would not be able to see the nearest rock, or you might be able to see one several hundred kilometers away as a faint object. When it comes to the Pacific Trash Vortex, it is the same idea, it is not so much that you can sit in one place and be in a sea of garbage (though there are places like that) but rather that you can be in the sea of garbage and not know it. The smallest pieces of plastic are microscopic, but they too block out the sun just as much as a plastic bag does and blocks the sunlight from reaching below. This affects the life below and affects the whole food web. In terms of science fiction I suppose the series is all right, but in terms of its actual science, its treats the environment the same way that early space serials treated outer space.