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Each year the United States throws out millions of tons of waste. Much of it is plastic. For every ten tons of plastic waste, we only recycle about one ton. So where do the other nine tons go? It goes to the dump where much of it floats away on the wind and rain. Most of that ends up in our oceans. Water bottles, gas cans, plastic bags, and even kayaks break up into tiny particles to be deposited on our beaches. The larger pieces float on the currents out to gyres. Gyres are swirling dead zones in the ocean. Once the debris is in the gyres, it is trapped there forever. These floating trash piles are estimated to be twice the size of Texas, and weigh approximately three million tons.