The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is much bigger than we thought

The Daily Digit is the story behind the numbers that make our world turn. Today we're looking at a 600,000-square-mile swath of the Pacific Ocean that's littered with plastic debris. It's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and new data shows that it's more than 16 times larger than once thought. The garbage patch has been steadily growing since plastics hit the market in the 1950s. This summer, a nonprofit called The Ocean Cleanup will launch its first mission to reduce the patch's size.