These 10 Rivers Are Responsible for 90 Percent of the Plastic in the Oceans
Over the last six decades, according to one estimate, 9.1 billion tons of plastic has been produced worldwide and 7 billion tons of it has ended up as waste. Much of that waste has infiltrated our oceans. And, according to another estimate, more than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into the sea each year.
Researchers from the Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research in Germany, think they’ve nailed down a crucial detail about plastic pollution: how it gets into the ocean. And, they found, just 10 rivers account for 90 percent of the plastics flowing into the seas. Their study is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology .
The problem of our plastic-filled oceans has been studied for years, but until now there has been little information on how the plastic gets there. Christian Schmidt, a hydrogeologist at the center who led the study, believes that to get plastic out of the ocean, we must first figure out how it is getting in. http://riverwatcher...