About 94 percent of the plastics in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are microplastics smaller than a grain of rice.
Notes on verification
94% by piece count is confirmed by the original peer-reviewed Lebreton et al. 2018 study and corroborated by The Ocean Cleanup and multiple independent news outlets. 'Smaller than a grain of rice' is a lay simplification not from the original paper but widely used by secondary sources as a reasonably accurate descriptor of microplastic size.
Sources
- The Pacific Ocean—facts and information (nationalgeographic.com)
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w (nature.com)
- https://theoceancleanup.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch/ (theoceancleanup.com)
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/science/the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-weighs-more-than-43000-cars-and-is-way-bigger-than-previously-thought (pbs.org)
- https://scienceinsights.org/what-is-the-great-garbage-patch-ocean-plastic-explained/ (scienceinsights.org)