For Every Person on Earth, There Are 21,000 Pieces of Plastic in the Ocean

New Research Shows Ocean Impact

Trash in a river on the outskirts of Guatemala City. Plastic that ends up in the ocean often starts by being dumped inland, where rivers feed it into the sea. Photo: Moises Castillo (AP)

The new research, conducted by a group of scientists and organized by the 5 Gyres Institute, an environmental nonprofit, is an update of an initial analysis of plastic pollution published in 2014, which measured 5 trillion particles in the ocean. This update to that study analyzed reams of data—some previously published, some new—from more than 11,000 samples to get a number on just how much trash is floating in the ocean.

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