Published: Less than 1 hour ago
Fishing nets, eel traps, food packaging and huge amounts of odd plastic fragments.
Now scientists have managed to identify the origin of some of the thousands of plastic objects that have been picked up from the Pacific Ocean – and it seems to be about just a handful of countries.
In an area of several million square kilometers in the North Pacific Ocean, tens of thousands of tons of plastic waste are floating. Researchers have now taken a closer look at the senders in a designated area in what is known as the Great Pacific garbage patch.
By analyzing just over 6,000 plastic items, the researchers can establish that much can be derived from five countries with large fishing industries – which the researchers believe highlights the important role that fishing plays in solving this global issue.
After different languages and countries of manufacture were identified on well-preserved plastic packaging, Japan, China, the USA, Taiwan and Korea are singled out as the main senders.
The most common litter (33 percent) was categorized as unidentifiable plastic objects/fragments. Second most common was fishing-related material such as fish boxes and eel traps (26 percent). Food packaging accounted for 13 percent.
The study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.