The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is changing the color of the ocean

Scientific American · Jackie Flynn Mogensen · 2026-11-05 17:15 UTC

The ocean’s blue and green hues near the infamous zone of debris have gotten brighter over the past 20 years, satellite data show

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area in the Pacific Ocean where debris naturally accumulates, is full of tiny bits of plastic—so full, in fact, that it seems to be changing the color of the ocean.

The ocean is, of course, famously blue. That’s because of the wavelength of light it reflects. Water scatters shorter wavelengths, which we see as blue—while absorbing longer wavelengths, such as red or orange. Additives in the ocean, including phytoplankton, algae and sediment, can affect its color.

Microplastics, too, can affect the color of the ocean. They can be made of all sorts of materials, including polystyrene, polypropylene, polyester, and more, explains Daniel Koestner, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Bergen in Norway, and tend to scatter more light than organic material in the ocean.

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