Plastic pollution in Atlantic at least 10 times worse than thought

More than 10 times as much plastic has been found in the Atlantic ocean than previously estimated to be there, showing the the world’s plastic problem is likely to be much greater than realised.

New measurements of the top 200m of the Atlantic found between 12 and 21 million tonnes of microscopic particles of three of the most common types of plastic, in about 5% of the ocean. That would indicate a concentration in the Atlantic of about 200 million tonnes of these common plastics.

Previous estimates, based on calculations of the amount of mismanaged municipal waste in coastal areas, were that between 17 million and 47 million tonnes of plastic had been released into the Atlantic in total over the 65 years from 1950 to 2015.

Read on via The Guardian