Comment Re:Ocean garbage patches? (Score 2) 139
The OP was talking about specific areas of the ocean where plastic accumulates due to currents, not the entire ocean itself.
Further, you start with the big stuff and all those critters would fall through the mesh. You could still have a person or two check what comes up and toss the wiggling stuff back into the water, but the amount of life that would be impacted is essentially zero compared to the amount of life which is currently being affected by these islands of plastic or ingestion of all those micro beads from facial scrubs (I use a type which has natural* scrubbers mixed in for this very reason).
* This is probably the only time you will ever hear me say I deliberately use something which has "natural" ingredients.