You are confusing pieces of plastic with the overall amount of plastic. Your own source even states:
A 2018 study found that synthetic fishing nets made up nearly half the mass of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Here is another National Geographic article where they go into more detail clarifying the difference:
Microplastics make up 94 percent of an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic in the patch. But that only amounts to eight percent of the total tonnage. As it turns out, of the 79,000 metric tons of plastic in the patch, most of it is abandoned fishing gear—not plastic bottles or packaging drawing headlines today.
A comprehensive new study by Slat’s team of scientists, published in Scientific Reports Thursday, concluded that the 79,000 tons was four to 16 times larger than has been previously estimated for the patch. The study also found that fishing nets account for 46 percent of the trash, with the majority of the rest composed of other fishing industry gear, including ropes, oyster spacers, eel traps, crates, and baskets. Scientists estimate that 20 percent of the debris is from the 2011 Japanese tsunami.
Fishing nets are nearly half. As you can see from the additional context I provided, "the majority of the rest [is] composed of other fishing industry gear."
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u/lnfinity Aug 12 '21
You are confusing pieces of plastic with the overall amount of plastic. Your own source even states:
Here is another National Geographic article where they go into more detail clarifying the difference:
Source