Global Plastic Pollution in the Ocean

If the ocean is a country, it would be the biggest country linking throughout every single corner of the globe. With the vast and large surface area, we categorise them based on their respective current flow of sea water - Mediterranean Sea, South Pacific, North Atlantic, North Pacific, Indian Ocean, South Atlantic, and Global Ocean. What has been found in these area, due to the lack of data available and cohesive measurement, the value and figures are not sufficient in accounting for the amount of pollution from plastic in the sea.

Over 5 trillions plastic has been discovered afloat which is equivalent to 250,000 tonnes in the our Ocean. If the world largest animal, a full fledged blue whale weighs about 181 tones, it would take 1381 whales to account for the amount of plastic we left floating around in the ocean. From the oceanographic evidence gathered, it points toward the southern hemisphere where there is a high level of concentrated plastic debris especially in gyres(areas with low wind and slow spiralling water). The test model made various different micro-plastic size from the lowest 0.33mm to macro-plastic 200mm. Despite the categorical plastic size, respective prefix of micro, macro and meso are limited to define plastic pollution. A range of micro-plastic (0.33mm to 5mm), meso-plastic (4.75mm without upper limit) and macro-plastic (upper limit of 200mm) such as plastic bottles(Eriksen et al., 2016).

In various factors of global dynamics has underestimated all of the above value. Ocean surface caused by wind is mixing and driving many debris down to the bottom of the ocean. The value has only accounted for what is on the surface.

Indian Ocean of Southern Hemisphere appears to have greater particle weight and counts in comparison to South Atlantic and South Pacific Ocean combine. These countries include Madagascar, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Paraguay, Brazil, Namibia, Uruguay, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. The amount of these area is amounted to a 32.5% of the earth filled and carrying 80.9% of sea waters.

As you can see, the centre of the earth with the plastic particles limited from 0.33mm - 1.00 mm spread across the world with up to 100,000 quantities per pixel and particles of plastic of 1.01-4.75mm has a reach of 1,000,000 quantities per pixel in comparison to macro plastic of over 200mm around the world.

Image the above shows concentration of plastic particles discovery.

References:Eriksen, M., Lebreton, L., Carson, H., Thiel, M., Moore, C., Borerro, J., Galgani, F., Ryan, P. and Reisser, J. (2016). Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea.