Other Views: Who'll clean ocean?

Percolating in the Pacific Ocean, about halfway between California and Hawaii, is an aquatic landfill commonly called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch ... an accumulation of debris that is estimated to be as large as twice the size of Texas.

The trash comes from oceangoing vessels as well as nations bordering the Pacific Basin and is brought to this one location by converging ocean currents that then hold it captive. The plastic that makes up some 90 percent of the debris breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces that float below the ocean's surface but do not biodegrade.

These tiny bits of plastic, which can absorb any number of toxic chemicals from ocean water, often are ingested by marine organisms that are themselves eaten by bigger fish that may be caught by commercial fishermen and eaten by consumers. ...

Efforts are just beginning to figure out how to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch as well as other, smaller patches elsewhere in the world's oceans, but getting nations to accept responsibility and pay to clean up trash that's far away and out of sight in international waters will be difficult ...

But pay they — and we — eventually must.