5 Gyres
5 Gyres conducts research on marine plastic pollution. The project currently focuses on the large garbage islands in the world's oceans, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. These aren't really islands of course, as plastic photodegrades into smaller and smaller particles, which eventually form a thick brownish soup. Of course, there are also many larger chunks of plastics floating there as well, and these provide both a hazard to some marine life and a habitat opportunity to others.
From the website:The 5 Gyres Project will have visited all 5 Gyres soon. We're collecting samples of plastic pollution from around the world and sharing them with the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a partner in the project. The samples are brought to their lab, where they all the plastic inside is divided into different sizes, colors and types. The goal is to adequately describe and monitor plastic pollution so that we can find the best solution to the problem.
By the way, a gyre is a large system of rotating ocean currents. Each of the five oceans has a massive gyre. Plastic refuse is concentrated in the center of these gyres. HuffPo has a good photo gallery taken on the voyage of the research vessel Sea Dragon.
