The Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch is located in an area of the Pacific called the North Pacific Gyre, at which four major ocean currents meet and form a giant whirlpool. Most of the trash that ends up in the Pacific Ocean gets caught in the whirlpool and has collected into a mass approximately twice the size of Texas.SF Gate: Feds Want to Survey, Possibly Clean Up Vast Garbage Pit... (October 30, 2007)

The peculiarities of this location arise from the fact that four prevailing ocean currents--the North Pacific Current to the north, the California Current to the east, the North Equatorial Current to the south, and the Kuroshio Current to the west--meet in the North Pacific Gyre. The collision of these currents creates a clockwise circular vortex that draws waste material in, and once in, traps it.Natural History Magazine: Trashed (November 2003)