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40 Tons Of Trash Removed From Pacific Ocean By Environmental Group

July 1, 2019 / 4:49 PM PDT / KCAL News

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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — An ocean cleanup group retrieved an astonishing 40 tons of plastic from the Pacific Ocean during cleanup efforts.

This photo taken June 18, 2019, provided by the Ocean Voyages Institute, shows a large net that was removed from the ocean during the Pacific gyre cleanup in Honolulu. Mariners on a sailing vessel hundreds of miles from the Hawaiian coast picked up more than 40 tons of abandoned fishing nets in an effort to clean a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean, where the nets can entangle whales, turtles and fish and damage coral reefs. The crew of volunteers with the California-based nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute fished out the derelict nets from a marine gyre between Hawaii and California known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch during a 25-day expedition, the group's founder, Mary Crowley, announced Friday, June 28, 2019. (Greg Yoder/Ocean Voyages Institute via AP)

Ocean Voyages Institute conducted the cleanup between California and Hawaii in an area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The amount of fishing nets and other plastic debris was equal to about seven fully grown elephants.

Along with mass amounts of fishing nets, detergent bottles, beer crates, cleaning bottles, plastic furniture, buckets, and toys were also found.

According to experts, removing the 40 tons of garbage barely made a dent in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.