Atlantic plastic ‘underestimated’

Estimates of how much plastic has been dumped in the Atlantic Ocean have been “massively underestimated”, experts say.

The mass of so-called invisible microplastics found in the upper waters of the Atlantic is around 12-21 million tonnes, new research suggests.

But the figure only represents three types of the most common types of plastic litter in a limited size range.

According to a study published in Nature Communications, it is comparable in magnitude to estimates of all plastic waste that has entered the Atlantic over the past 65 years – 17 million tonnes.

This suggests the supply of plastic to the ocean has been substantially underestimated, researchers say. The study focused on polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene, which are commercially most prominent and also the most littered plastic types, according to the experts.

Lead author of the paper, Katsiaryna Pabortsava from the National Oceanography Centre, said: “Previously, we couldn’t balance the mass of floating plastic we observed with the mass we thought had entered the ocean since 1950.

“This is because earlier studies hadn’t been measuring the concentrations of ‘invisible’ microplastic particles beneath the ocean surface.

“Our research is the first to have done this across the entire Atlantic, from the UK to the Falklands.”