Sisyphean

Context: Attempting to fish out this drifting morass of trash using conventional methods-vessels, more nets-would a Sisyphean task.

Source: The Atlantic; February 4, 2019; p 42, The Widening Gyre.

Sisyphean: [ˌsisəˈfēən], ADJECTIVE (of a task) such that it can never be completed. Endlessly laborious or futile.
Sisyphus: a legendary king of Corinth condemned eternally to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it nears the top.

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