Man begins six-month swim through 'Great Pacific garbage patch'

Ben Lecomte hopes to make it from Japan to San Francisco in 180 days while raising awareness of plastic pollution

A French anti-plastic campaigner has begun a six-month journey to swim through the giant floating rubbish mass known as the Great Pacific garbage patch.

Ben Lecomte, who has previously swum across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998, left the shores of Choshi in Japan on Tuesday morning, heading east.