There was a guy on a broadcast yesterday -- I think it came through on Washington Journal on C-Span--in any event, he was talking about new maratime regulations that required that commercial vessels have to cut all pieces of plastic into one-inch diameter pieces before they can throw them overboard.

                   This might prevent them from floating on the surface so they wouldn't create the kind of Garbage Patch we are talking about here, but wouldn't they then just sink to the bottom and do some kind of similar damage there?