in 1997, captain moore discovered a massive garbage patch in the north pacific. now his team has confirmed the existence of another further south off the coast of chile and peru. captain moore estimates it to be about 2 million square kilometers larger than mexico. it formed winds around a persistent high pressure system drive ocean currents creating a vortex known as gyres and causing debris to collect in a central location. >> i call it a plastic soup. if you think of the ocean as the liquid in a soup, we have gone from, you know, creamy to extra chunky. >> reporter: captain moore and his team spent months trolling the south pacific collecting samples from large objects to plastic the size of a grain of rice. >> the surface waters are where we see the debris and it is mostly particulate.