Trash Soup
Natural products such as food, paper, and wood are biodegradable [bigh-oh-di-GRAYduh-buhl];
they’re broken down by bacteria and are absorbed by the environment.
Plastic, on the other hand, is photodegradable. Light from the sun causes it to break into
smaller pieces over time. It never degrades completely, however. It often winds up
littering the land and the ocean.
In the Pacific Ocean, plastic waste has collected in a swirling “soup” of trash called the
Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s huge—four times as big as Texas! It’s just one example
of an ocean garbage patch. Plastic pollutes all the world’s seas. The United Nations