Only 5% of the plastic produced today is recovered. Fifty percent is buried in landfills and the other 45% is lost; most of it to the world's oceans.

Most of us have heard about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of floating plastic waste, but there are 4 other oceanic gyres that also become dead ends for our plastic trash.

The 5 Gyres Project is a research project promoting understanding about plastics pollution and those five pelagic plastic black holes. It's the first global study of plastic marine pollution.

I found out about 5 Gyres at one of the blogs I follow, Rise Above Plastics:

A collaboration between three groups; The Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF), Livable Legacy, and Pangaea Explorations; 5 Gyres will expand upon AMRF’s groundbreaking research on plastic pollution in the North Pacific Gyre, where wind and current patterns circulate untold billions of plastic particles. The 5 Gyres Project will begin to sail January 7th across the North Atlantic, and again in August across the South Atlantic Gyre, researching plastic.

The North Atlantic phase of the research expedition is currently in Bermuda and you can read the blog here.

5 Gyres Project: 5gyres.org