Majority of floating 'garbage' patch of plastic in Pacific Ocean comes from just six countries

New research reveals that more than 90% of vast floating 'garbage' patch of plastic in the Pacific Ocean comes from just six countries. The research specifies that most of the garbage patch is coming from overfishing in two countries—Japan and China.

After analysis and proper sampling, a team of researchers with the Ocean Cleanup project and Wageningen University published on Thursday (September 1) their report in theScientific Reportsjournal.

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The paper mentioned that the subtropical oceanic gyre in the North Pacific Ocean is currently covered with tens of thousands of tonnes of floating plastic debris.

That debris is apparently dispersed over millions of square kilometres. The accumulation zone is referred to as the North Pacific Garbage Patch (NPGP).

Previously, experts have noted how the garbage patch gradually becomes a sign of how the global ocean is impacted due to the widescale use of plastics and their discarding.

The study noted that a large fraction of the garbage is composed of fishing nets and ropes. Meanwhile, the rest is mostly composed of hard plastic objects and fragments.

There are times when plastic carries identifiable evidence of its origin, which helps the experts to find out the country from where the plastic has originated.

In the new research, scientists analysed around 573 kilograms of dry hard plastic debris that was collected with help from The Ocean Cleanup organization in 2019.

During the analysis, they found that more than a quarter of the fragments were from 'abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear' (known as ALDFG).

The researchers were able to find out the country of origin of 232 objects. As per the study, the largest percentage is from Japan at 33.6%. China was next at 32.3%, South Korea at 9.9%, the United States at 6.5%, Taiwan at 5.6% and Canada at 4.7%.

As per the calculations by the researchers, the trash in the NPGP was 10 times more likely to come from fishing activities.

"Oceanic sources such as inputs from fisheries have commonly been attributed about half of a million tonnes [of plastic waste] per year, but this estimate which has been repeatedly cited over the years, was misinterpreted from an initial study dating back to the 1970s," the authors write in their paper.

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