Oprah Shines Light On Great Pacific Garbage Patch (VIDEO)

08-27-2009 • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/23/oprah-shi

Oprah's green episode for Earth Day started with chilling footage and description of a giant island of trash -- "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch". Currently, scientists believe the world's largest garbage dump isn't on land...it's in the Pacific Ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches from the coast of California to Japan, and it's estimated to be twice the size of Texas. "This is the most shocking thing I have seen," Oprah says. Just a month ago, the Natural Resource Defense Council's Kate Slusark blogged here at HuffPost Green about the giant oceanic trash dump: To give you a little background: Years of bottles, bags, toys, packaging and plastic trash from all corners of the Earth are swirling in a plastic whirlpool in the North Pacific. Discarded water bottles from Iowa, takeout containers from New York City, flip-flops from California and plastic debris from the world over make their way from land into storm drains, s