Abstract
Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. Here we characterise and quantify a major ocean plastic accumulation zone formed in subtropical waters between California and Hawaii: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km2; a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported. We explain this difference through the use of more robust methods to quantify larger debris. Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of fishing nets. Microplastics accounted for 8% of the total mass but 94% of the estimated 1.8 (1.1–3.6) trillion pieces floating in the area. Plastic collected during our study has specific characteristics such as small surface-to-volume ratio, indicating that only certain types of debris have the capacity to persist and accumulate at the surface of the GPGP. Finally, our results suggest that ocean plastic pollution within the GPGP is increasing exponentially and at a faster rate than in surrounding waters.
Highlights
Global annual plastic consumption has reached over 320 million tonnes with more plastic produced in the last decade than ever before[1]
We predicted that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) contains a total of 1.8 trillion plastic pieces weighing 79 k (45 k−129 k) tonnes, comprised of debris categorised in 4 size classes: microplastics (0.05–0.5 cm), mesoplastics (0.5–5 cm), macroplastics (5–50 cm), and megaplastics (>50 cm)
This study provides a detailed quantification and characterization of ocean plastic within a major oceanic plastic pollution hotspot: the GPGP
Summary
Global annual plastic consumption has reached over 320 million tonnes with more plastic produced in the last decade than ever before[1]. Most available data on quantities and characteristics of buoyant ocean plastic are derived from samples collected with small sea surface trawls initially developed to collect neustonic plankton[27] Due to their small aperture (0.5–1 m width, 0.15–1 m depth) and limited surface area covered, they could underestimate loads of rarer and larger plastic objects such as bottles, buoys and fishing nets. In an attempt to overcome this misrepresentation, a research team[21] combined net tow data with information from vessel-based visual sighting surveys They found that while small, millimetre-sized pieces (
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