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A growing plastic smog, now estimated to be over 170 trillion plastic particles afloat in the world’s oceans—Urgent solutions required
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Researchers analyzed ocean plastic data from over 11,000 sampling stations worldwide spanning 1979 to 2019. They estimated that approximately 82 to 358 trillion plastic particles are now floating in the world's oceans, and found a rapid acceleration in plastic pollution since 2005. The study underscores the urgent need for international policy interventions, as current levels suggest existing efforts have not been sufficient to slow the growing plastic burden.
As global awareness, science, and policy interventions for plastic escalate, institutions around the world are seeking preventative strategies. Central to this is the need for precise global time series of plastic pollution with which we can assess whether implemented policies are effective, but at present we lack these data. To address this need, we used previously published and new data on floating ocean plastics (n = 11,777 stations) to create a global time-series that estimates the average counts and mass of small plastics in the ocean surface layer from 1979 to 2019. Today's global abundance is estimated at approximately 82-358 trillion plastic particles weighing 1.1-4.9 million tonnes. We observed no clear detectable trend until 1990, a fluctuating but stagnant trend from then until 2005, and a rapid increase until the present. This observed acceleration of plastic densities in the world's oceans, also reported for beaches around the globe, demands urgent international policy interventions.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.