Halfway between Hawaii and California in the north Pacific Ocean sits the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the world’s largest buildup of plastic. This floating mass, made up of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, will never disappear. Instead, aided by wind and sea currents, it will degrade into minute shards of microplastics, endangering even the smallest organisms and damaging entire ecosystems. It’s just one of six giant garbage patches swirling around in our seas. Since 1950, when plastics became ubiquitous, humans have generated 8.3 billion metric tons of the stuff, and the vast majority of plastic waste ends up in landfills, oceans and other natural environments.