PLANT & ANIMAL LIFE
Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the Pacific Ocean.
For example, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags carelessly thrown into the ocean for jellyfish, their favorite food. Albatrosses, large sea birds, mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs. The birds feed these "fish eggs" to chicks, which end up dying of starvation or ruptured organs due to the foreign material damaging their insides.
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Seals and other marine mammals are also at risk due to the garbage found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They can possibly get trapped in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded into the water instead of being properly disposed of overground. These aforementioned animals often drown in these frequently disposed-of fishing nets, an unfortunate phenomenon dubbed "ghost fishing". This could have easily been avoided by simply disposing of equipment properly.
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Additionally, debris littering the ocean also has the potential to disturb well-established food webs in international waters. Microplastics and other trash gather near the surface of the ocean, blocking crucially needed sunshine from reaching plankton and algae below. Algae and plankton are the most common autotrophs in the marine food web. Autotrophs are organisms that can produce their own food by converting light energy into chemical energy. These organisms are the backbone of a food web. Without them, an entire ecosystem is in danger of collapsing.

If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change. These producers are crucial for the survival of any sort of ecosystem, as they convert light energy into chemical energy that organisms receive by feeding on producers. Thus, marine animals that feed on algae and plankton, such as fish and turtles, will have less food and will begin to perish of starvation. If populations of those animals decrease, there will be less food for apex predators such as tuna, sharks, and whales. This chain effect will continue, damaging the established food web. Eventually, seafood will become less available due to a lack of producers and, consequently, more expensive for purchase.
These dangers are compounded by the fact that plastics both leach out and absorb harmful pollutants. As plastics break down through photodegradation, they leach out colorants and chemicals, such as bisphenol A (BPA), that have been linked to environmental and health problems. Conversely, plastics can also absorb pollutants, such as PCBs, from the seawater. These chemicals can then enter the food chain when consumed by marine life.
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Though this seems like it may not affect humans at first, it certainly does. Take a look at the diagram below:
Bioaccumulation, as defined by a Google search, is the gradual accumulation of substances, such as pesticides or other chemicals, in an organism.
In friendlier words, dangerous things (like hazardous the chemicals in plastics, in this scenario) makes its way up the food chain all the way to humans. This can have dangerous effects on health such as potentially interfering with hormone function, brain development, and can also potentially cause cancer or birth defects.
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It is imperative that we start dealing with this problem before our marine food supply is fully unsustainable.