PACIFIC OCEAN (CNN) — Forty tons.
That’s how much junk an ocean clean-up group just pulled out of the Pacific.
To put it in perspective, that’s equal to about seven fully-grown elephants.
Among the junk hauled in were massive nets that drift for decade — called ghost nets — and pull in plastic, wildlife and even ships.
Animals that get caught in this are often killed. In fact — about 380,000 animals are killed every year by these things.
Along with the ghost net, this haul pulled up everything from detergent bottles, beer crates, cleaning bottles, plastic furniture, buckets and toys.
The nonprofit organization Ocean Voyages Institute went out on a 25 day cleanup mission in an area called the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone — which is more commonly known as the Pacific Gyre.
It’s between California and Hawaii, and the area collects huge amount of plastics because there are so many ocean currents coming together.
Experts say even collecting 40 tons of trash barely made a dent.
It’s estimated that anywhere from 1.15 million to 2.41 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year.
