Uhhh. Calling it Garbage Island can only hurt that case. There is no large continuos plastic island the size of Texas (or smaller) in the Pacific.

That doesn’t make the problem any smaller. Microscopic pieces of plastic entering the food chain is not what you would want.

For more meat and less blah (1988): http://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/TM/SWFSC/NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWF...

This one is a bit fresher (2001), if not quite as extensive: ftp://ftp.sccwrp.org/pub/download/DOCUMENTS/AnnualReports/1999AnnualReport/10_ar11.pdf

PS, don’t wash your face http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19481226 :)