There's no such thing as a giant floating garbage patch. The reality is much, much worse. "The Smog of the Sea" documents a week-long expedition that a group of ‘citizen scientists’ took through the Sargasso Sea of the North Atlantic, to explore the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean. Guided by ocean researcher Marcus Erikson, the participants were stunned to learn that there’s no such thing as a giant floating garbage patch anywhere in the world. Instead, plastic is everywhere, which is a far worse reality. Erikson explains: “The public sees an island of trash. They picture this giant place that you can go visit, this Jules Verne-esque kind of space. It doesn’t exist at all. It’s much worse than that. It’s this plastic smog of small particles that are being ingested by billions of organisms in the world’s oceans.” These particles have broken down to the size of fish larvae or zooplankton. They float on the surface of the ocean and eventually sink to greater depths.