Study Reveals Plastic Accumulation in Atlantic Over the Last 22 Years

BBC Online News
Study Measures Atlantic Plastic Accumulation
August 20, 2010

National Geographic Article, August 20, 2010

The team analysed data from ship surveys collected over 22 years between 1986 and 2008, which involved in excess of 6,000 net tows that gathered more than 64,000 pieces of plastic.

The largest number of plastic pieces in the data set was collected in 1997, in which 1,069 pieces were recovered by researchers in a single 30-minute tow. This equated to 580,000 pieces per square kilometre. The team observed that the highest concentrations of floating plastic were "clearly associated" with a convergence of surface ocean currents and prevailing winds.
"This convergence zone... extends across most of the sub-tropical North Atlantic basin," they reported.

They said the global production of plastic materials had increased five-fold between 1976 and 2008 and the amount thrown away in the US has risen four-fold during the past two decades.

Meanwhile, the volume being dumped by vessels had fallen as a result of rules introduced in 1988 that prohibited the dumping of plastic at sea.

By Mark Kinver

Science and environment reporter, BBC News