ericson studies the amount and impact of plastic debris in the ocean.uccessfully fishing the surface, we wondered what might be below. out here the water looks very clear, but you never know what's lying underneath. the bags we found do more than just litter the ocean floor. this is the marine mammal center. its staff and volunteers rescue and rehabilitate sick and injured animals. >> he's not very responsive. he'll get an initial assessment. >> reporter: dr. bill van bond is director of veterinary science. >> whales, sea lions, dolphins, in my personal experience, i've seen all three of those animals with bags in them. >> reporter: if a marine mammal swallows a plastic bag can it kill the animal? >> it could. it could. but i think the bigger concern is the unseen effects of these materials. >> as those plastic bags migrate out the deep ocean, they fragment very quickly. one plastic bag can turn into 10,000 particles the size of fish food. >> reporter: ericson has traveled to remote locations. rotating ocean currents known as gyres have trapped debris,

let's talk a little about eric ericson, you wrote this about rick santorum. it jumped out at me.d, wow. i really and genuinely do not get why we'd want to throw one senator-elected president out of office. you're referring to president obama. and replace him with a senator who couldn't even win re-election in his home state. you have no great love for rick santorum, to you? >> i don't dislike him. but this rick santorum rise boggles my mind. there are plenty of evangelicals in the race with longer records than rick santorum that are much more successful. in pennsylvania he lost by 18 per ser taj points. in fact, because of santorum's 18-point loss the republicans lost four house seats tied to santorum's re-election. he hasn't been elected since them. >> you don't like mitt romney either. >> i'm a none of the above guy right now. >> you don't like any of these candidates? >> none of them have really excited me. i'm really disappointed by this field. i really think we need to talk to some of these guys privately. not these guys. some of the guys that didn't run privately. they're n