There are 12-21 million tonnes of tiny plastic debris washed up in the Atlantic Ocean, scientists have found.
The research, led by Britain’s National Oceanographic Center, scooped up 200 meters of the top layer of the ocean during a research expedition in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
That amount of 21 million tonnes of plastic is enough to fill nearly 1,000 container ships.
The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications.
On their expedition Dr. Pabortsava and colleagues detected up to 7,000 particles per cubic meter of seawater.
The research team hopes that the findings will help measure ecological and environmental damage.
