Midway Atoll
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, USA · 28.20°, -177.37° · Ocean plastic
Albatross chicks on this remote atoll die with stomachs full of bottle caps and lighters carried in from the Pacific gyre.
Midway lies more than 2,000 km from any continent, yet tonnes of plastic wash onto its beaches each year from the North Pacific gyre. Adult Laysan albatrosses mistake floating plastic for food and feed it to their chicks, which die of starvation or injury; the carcasses, full of coloured fragments, became a symbol of ocean plastic. The atoll is a national wildlife refuge and a cleanup site.
In the game
Midway Atoll flares up as Polluted water. The fix is a gesture: drag through the floating waste to sweep it up. Done right, it becomes Water cleaned ♻️. Finish all three steps of its chain in one round for a combo, or take your time in Explore mode: a place you fully restore stays green on your map for good.
🧭 Fly there and restore it▶ Play a 60-second round