<P> While "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" is a term often used by the media, it does not paint an accurate picture of the marine debris problem in the North Pacific Ocean . The name "Pacific Garbage Patch" has led many to believe that this area is a large and continuous patch of easily visible marine debris items such as bottles and other litter--akin to a literal island of trash that should be visible with satellite or aerial photographs . This is not the case . </P> <P> In April 2008, Richard Sundance Owen, a building contractor and scuba dive instructor, formed the Environmental Cleanup Coalition (ECC) to address the issue of North Pacific pollution . ECC collaborates with other groups to identify methods to safely remove plastic and persistent organic pollutants from the oceans . The JUNK Raft Project was a trans - Pacific sailing voyage from June to August 2008 made to highlight the plastic in the patch, organized by the Algalita Marine Research Foundation . </P> <P> Project Kaisei, a project to study and clean up the garbage patch, launched in March 2009 . In August 2009, two project vessels, the New Horizon and the Kaisei, embarked on a voyage to research the patch and determine the feasibility of commercial scale collection and recycling . The SEAPLEX expedition, a group of researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, spent 19 days on the ocean in August, 2009 researching the patch . Their primary goal was to describe the abundance and distribution of plastic in the gyre in the most rigorous study to date . Researchers were also looking at the impact of plastic on mesopelagic fish, such as lanternfish . This group utilized a dedicated oceanographic research vessel, the 170 ft (52 m) long New Horizon . </P> <P> In 2012, Miriam C. Goldstein, Marci Rosenberg, and Lanna Cheng wrote: </P>

When did the pacific gyre garbage patch start