And he describes the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous expanse of the Pacific Ocean where currents concentrate the trash over a continent-sized area.

ECONOMIST: A history of waste

Although this flow has prevented tsunami debris from approaching the islands, it carries a lot of trash from the Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California.

MSN: Survey Keeping Close Tabs on Japan Tsunami Debris

In a different answer to rising sea levels, Dutch studio Whim Architects produced plans for floating, self-sustaining homes made from plastic waste from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

ENGADGET: Inhabitat's Week in Green: self-sustaining homes, wooden wind turbines and the world's first solar-powered nation

Over a coffee few years ago I opened the morning paper and was struck by a vividly illustrated article announcing Charles Moore's discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

His aim during a 100-day voyage that will take him from San Francisco, California, to Sydney, Australia, is to find the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" between California and Japan -- a massive sea of plastic trash that environmentalists say could soon be larger than the continental United States.

CNN: Environmentalist: It's becoming a plastic world

After reading about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and seeing a photograph of an albatross with its belly full of plastic several years ago, Terry started cataloguing the plastic waste she creates each year, concentrating on disposable plastics (not her laptop or television, but things like food packaging, shipping waste, straws, and so forth).

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Already, the New York Times has agreed to publish an article on a giant floating garbage patch in the Pacific, if the journalist can raise the money to go.

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En route to Australia, Plastiki will sail through the infamous North Pacific Gyre, now home to "The Great Garbage Patch, " named due to the high levels of waste that have been drawn there by ocean currents.

CNN: Boat of plastic to set sail with environmental message