Eighty percent of plastic waste in the seas ends up on beaches or floating in coastal waters, according to a research team at the University of Bern.
Eighty percent of plastic waste accumulates on beaches
Particularly in the coastal regions of Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean coast, the proportion of plastic dumped ashore is high, a research group led by the University of Bern found in a study published in the scientific journal Environmental Research Letters.
Experts have developed a model based on current ocean currents and estimates to determine the amount of plastic waste entering the water. If garbage is not collected from beaches and water surfaces,
According to the model, 77 percent of floating waste reaches beaches or coastal waters within five years.
A research team led by Viktor Unink, a scientist at the University of Bern, said that garbage is piling up on beaches at the highest rate as most plastic enters the seas. This is especially the case in Southeast Asia, as well as in the Mediterranean, where, among other things, the Nile River carries a lot of garbage to the sea.
Only in the waters around Antarctica there is no plastic waste
The lowest concentrations of plastic are found in less densely populated areas, such as the Arctic regions off the coast of Chile, and parts of the coast of Australia.
During simulations, the Antarctic mainland was free of plastic.
According to the research, plastic waste entering waters in the eastern United States, eastern Japan and Indonesia, among other countries, is more likely to reach the open ocean than anywhere else. “It would be especially helpful to collect the plastic in these places before it goes out into the open water,” said Onink.
(Source: MTI / sda / dpa)
