According to a new research, Great Pacific garbage patch is up to 16 times bigger than previously thought. The waste patch is around twice the size of France.
The research was published in Nature and it found the patch contains an estimated 79,000 tons of plastic. The analysis of the patch was conducted over two years using boats and air surveys.
Microplastics (smaller than 0.5cm) is the biggest part of the patch, but around half of the weight of rubbish is made up of discarded fishing nets.
While there are efforts on the way to clean up the garbage from the oceans, roughly 8m tons of (new) plastic ends up in the oceans every year. This plastic either adds to the pile in the oceans or washes up on beaches.
Laurent Lebreton, lead author of the study, said that "We need a coordinated international effort to rethink and redesign the way we use plastics. The numbers speak for themselves. Things are getting worse and we need to act now."
Lebreton is working for the Ocean Cleanup non-profit that's trying to clean up the oceans. If nothing is done, the estimation is that there will be more waste of plastic than fish in the sea by year 2050. The Ocean Cleanup has pledged to clean up half of the Great Pacific garbage patch within five years, but that's just the start, and they need help from countries around the globe.
And why not Coca Cola and Nestle, while we're at it.
The research was published in Nature and it found the patch contains an estimated 79,000 tons of plastic. The analysis of the patch was conducted over two years using boats and air surveys.
Microplastics (smaller than 0.5cm) is the biggest part of the patch, but around half of the weight of rubbish is made up of discarded fishing nets.
While there are efforts on the way to clean up the garbage from the oceans, roughly 8m tons of (new) plastic ends up in the oceans every year. This plastic either adds to the pile in the oceans or washes up on beaches.
Laurent Lebreton, lead author of the study, said that "We need a coordinated international effort to rethink and redesign the way we use plastics. The numbers speak for themselves. Things are getting worse and we need to act now."
Lebreton is working for the Ocean Cleanup non-profit that's trying to clean up the oceans. If nothing is done, the estimation is that there will be more waste of plastic than fish in the sea by year 2050. The Ocean Cleanup has pledged to clean up half of the Great Pacific garbage patch within five years, but that's just the start, and they need help from countries around the globe.
And why not Coca Cola and Nestle, while we're at it.
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