For more than 40 years after the first reports of plastic pollution in the oceans, scientists struggled to put a precise value on the amount of plastic waste entering the marine system.
Initial estimates only accounted for plastic from ships dumping has since been banned—but land impacts weren't factored in until now.
A study of mismanaged plastic waste generated from the world's coastlines estimated that between 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons enter the oceans annually, or roughly five trash bags full of plastic for every foot of coastline in the world.
When broken down by country, more than half of the top 20 countries in regard to mismanaged plastic waste are in Asia, with China responsible for more than a quarter of the plastic entering the ocean with 2.4 million metric tons. Even worse, at most 2 percent of the ocean's plastic is at the surface, often in large masses of garbage at the center of oceanic gyres such as the Great Pacific garbage patch.
The United States is 20th on the list, and even though it has the largest rate of daily waste production per capita, only 2% of it is mismanaged, or about 750,000 metric tons. In comparison, more than 2.8 million metric tons of plastic are recycled every year; however, this is only nine percent of all plastic waste produced in the country.
While ramping up cleanup projects to remove the current plastic waste would help reduce the environmental impact, the study points to stopping mismanaged plastic waste at its source as a more viable solution. Even just reducing waste generation to 2010 levels would reduce the amount of plastic in the oceans projected for 2025. If not, we're likely to see double the garbage by then.
Credits: BusinessInsider
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