Ocean plastic pollution has rapidly risen since 2005: study

By Alice Clifford via SWNS

Ocean plastic pollution has rapidly risen since 2005, with around 171 trillion plastic particles afloat in 2019, reveals a shocking new study.

In 2019, the plastic in our seas amounted to 2.3 million tons, and now data reveals that this could get worse.

Without widespread policy changes, researchers predict that the rate at which plastics enter our waters will increase by around 2.6 times by 2040.

The team believes that this rapid increase could reflect the global growth of plastic production or changes in waste generation and management.

The team studied a global dataset of ocean plastic pollution between 1979 and 2019.

The data came from 11,777 stations across six marine regions.

These regions were the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, and Mediterranean.

Most of the data collected was from the North Pacific and North Atlantic.

Due to a relative lack of data from 1979 to 1990, trends over this period were difficult to find.

More data was available between 1990 and 2004, showing that plastic levels fluctuated but with no clear trend.

The team now call for urgent legally binding international policy intervention to minimize the harm caused by plastic.

Marcus Eriksen, co-founder and researcher from The 5 Gyres Institute, said: "We've found an alarming trend of exponential growth of microplastics in the global ocean since the millennium, reaching over 170 trillion plastic particles.

“This is a stark warning that we must act now at a global scale. We need a strong, legally binding UN Global Treaty on plastic pollution that stops the problem at the source."

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.