Experts are warning a massive chunk of debris in the Pacific Ocean is growing far faster than expected. It's known as "The Great Pacific Garbage Patch" -- and was discovered more than 20 years ago. But natural disasters have since added to the problem - and there are fears about what it will mean for the future of life in the water. CGTN's Phil Lavelle reports from the Pacific Coast in Los Angeles.

The Pacific Ocean looks inviting on a calm, April morning.

PHIL LAVELLE LOS ANGELES "But there's way more than water out there. And it's a big problem."

Enough trash to cover Texas twice over. A garbage collection double the size of that entire state. Three times bigger than France.

MATTHEW KING 'HEAL THE BAY' ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP "I think people are becoming more aware, but we gotta do something about it now."

Floating somewhere between California and Hawaii, way out west. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Pacific Trash Vortex. Call it what you will. It's huge either way:

"It's almost like a soup."

1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, say researchers. Or 250, for every human on the planet. 80,000 tons. And growing way faster than expected.

MATTHEW KING 'HEAL THE BAY' ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP "When people think of this as a garbage patch, they think of it as being huge piles of plastic but it's a mixture of things and it's important to keep that in mind. It's almost like a goop, this stuff breaks down, it's almost like a jelly."

PHIL LAVELLE LOS ANGELES The big question is where is all of this trash coming from. Fundamentally, it's manmade. It's plastic. It's coming from humans. But a range of sources. And two in particular being highlighted here.

Japan, one of them- debris that fell into the ocean following the major tsunami back in 2011 and is still there, floating researchers say that accounts for about 20 percent. But researchers say fishermen bear the main responsibility. Around half of that plastic from discarded nets, chucked overboard and left to pollute.

JERRY SCHUBEL AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC "Even if you were a casual boater, you could go right through this and not even realize you were in this garbage patch."

They know all about marine pollution here at the Aquarium of the Pacific. In fact, they try to teach visitors about it.

So, they're keenly watching an experiment that may help get rid of some of this plastic.

The idea: you put stations into the water, with their own nets, that help bring all the trash together.

JERRY SCHUBEL AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC "They will drift with the currents, they will concentrate this material so if it's concentrated enough, you can remove it and recycle it and get rid of it somehow."

PHIL: "So you're effectively adding more plastic to get rid of the plastic."

JERRY: "Yes, but in small amounts, you're concentrating what's there, if it's a concentrated enough soup, you can remove the ingredients."

PHIL: "It's so far out of sight, out of mind. Why should we care?"

MATTHEW KING 'HEAL THE BAY' ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP "You make a great point. People have to realize that 70 percent of the world's oxygen comes from the ocean. So it's the source of a third of the world's protein and so if the ocean is unhealthy then our environment is unhealthy."

And few will argue that action is needed. Both at sea - and on land before it's too late.

MATTHEW KING 'HEAL THE BAY' ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP "It's been estimated that by 2050, there'll be more plastic in the sea than fish, by mass."

Phil Lavelle, CGTN, Los Angeles.