Midway between Hawaii and San Francisco, there is something twice the size of Texas in the Pacific Ocean. It isn't alive, but it moves and similar ones are growing throughout the world. Fishermen avoid the area because of the lack of fish and strong winds. It is the Pacific Gyre, the largest garbage collection in the ocean with approximately 3.5 million tons of trash -- and growing.

The Pacific Gyre is the result of trash accumulating in one place by ocean currents. The gyre has a rotational pattern, and as a result, floating debris gets trapped in the center. The trash is not as visible in some parts because it has turned microscopic.

Kathleen Egan, director of the "Rise Above Plastics" program at San Francisco's SurfRider chapter, has been hosting cleanups at Ocean Beach every other Saturday since she started the program. SurfRider is a national organization that gets community people together to protect the ocean. "People can identify more with the beach here than something in the ocean," says Egan. She hopes that through her efforts in beach cleanups and educational presentations, people can be motivated to change their habits of using plastic.

One way she says people can do this is by carrying their own reusable water bottle rather than plastic ones. "The plastic lasts forever and you drink the water in less than ten minutes," says Egan.

"It's an out of sight, out of mind thing," says Mary Crowley, director of Project Kaisei. Project Kaisei, a Sausalito based ocean research institute, is one of the many teams trying to find a solution to the gyre. Crowley founded the institute in 1979 to conserve the ocean's health. "The health of the ocean equates to the health of our planet," says Crowley.

Project Kaisei launched a mission to the gyre in August to study the effects of the debris. The Kaisei ship sailed to the area northeast of Hawaii. The crew returned at the end of the month to San Francisco Bay.

Dennis Rogers, a Project Kaisei educational advisor, was not surprised to see the amount of trash at the gyre. "It was in the concentration I expected to see," says Rogers about his first trip to the gyre.

The Kaisei team was able to see accumulation of waste after five days at sea. He describes the trash as coating the surface, but not a junk island where it all came together.

"It's so spread out you can't put a direct marker on it," says Rogers. One of the ways the Kaisei team hopes to start solving the problem is by recycling the plastic into diesel fuel after cleaning out harmful chemicals. A single solution has yet to be reached. The results of the research are still being studied and won't be released for a few months, according to Crowley.

Alison Barratt, communications assistant manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, wants people to realize that marine mammals are paying the price for ocean pollution.

A Layson Albatross named Makana calls the Monterey Bay Aquarium home after her wing was unable to heal after an injury. She is part of a species that plastic is eliminating.

The Layson Albatross spends the majority of its lifetime at sea and only come on land to mate on their native island of Midway in Hawaii. They have a smaller population because they only lay one egg a year. The number of albatross is dwindling by 40% as the newborn chicks die with stomachs full of plastic, according to Barratt. The albatross go out to sea and regurgitate the trash to the offspring.

One of the main plastic materials claiming marine lives are nurdles. The nurdles are tiny plastic pieces mainly used in molds that resemble fish eggs and plankton. They easily find their way into the oceans where marine mammals ingest them.

Barratt says people need to be as motivated about cleaning up the gyre as they are when an oil spill occurs at sea. "We need to stop it before it starts," she says.

San Francisco is one of the few cities in California that has banned the use of plastic bags from retailers. The Schwarzenegger administration may enact a proposal that would charge shoppers a fee of twenty-five cents for each plastic or paper bag distributed to them. The money collected would be used to pay for state recycling efforts. If it is passed it will go into effect on July 1, 2010.

As people try to solve the problem, it continues to grow. The gyre sits in the Pacific Ocean, isolated from civilization.

"If you can't see it happening, how can you be motivated to act?," says Barratt.