If it's true that there's so much plastic garbage floating on the earth's oceans that it covers areas the size of the state of California...
...would it be possible to use static electricity -- or something else -- to attract plastic-garbage in the ocean to some kind of collection location and then to a removal system -- safely and without causing other damage?
I've been reading about using static electricity to "bend water" in classroom or at-home experiments.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/z77ycdm/revision/2
So I know, this is probably a really dumb idea. But plastic sticks to something with a negative charge, doesn't it? But ocean water itself has a lot of negative ions. But what would happen if you made a balloon or plastic bag stick to yourself or something else, maybe on a windy day, and went into the ocean.
I'm hoping some scientists will patiently talk this question over with me.
Does the plastic garbage mostly float? And does it cluster? Is the clustering caused by currents? Or something else? Or currents plus something else?