Plastics are Forever

Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Plastic Turning Vast Area of Ocean into Ecological Nightmare

I'd like to quote so much, but I'll restrain myself to this:

am often asked why we can't vacuum up the particles. In fact, it would be more difficult than vacuuming up every square inch of the entire United States; it's larger and the fragments are mixed below the surface down to at least 30 meters. Also, untold numbers of organisms would be destroyed in the process.

Besides, there is no economic resource that would be directly benefited by this process. We haven't yet learned how to factor the health of the environment into our economic paradigm. We need to get to work on this calculus quickly, for a stock market crash will pale by comparison to an ecological crash on an oceanic scale. (Emphasis added.)

This is not a new article, but the garbage patch is new to me. Anyone know more? Wikipedia has an article with a useful-looking bibliography.