Large quantities of EU and US plastic pollution in Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean contains a surprisingly large amount of plastic waste pollution. This plastic comes from Europe and the US. Researchers found that the Greenland and Barents seas have accumulated hundreds of tons of plastic debris. The debris is composed of approximately 300 billion pieces, mainly fragments around the size of a grain of rice, which makes it very difficult to clean up.
Plastic is transported from the North Atlantic to the Arctic by the Gulf Stream. Once it gets to the Arctic, this current sinks and travels back to the equator, but the plastic does not sink with it. An article about the research is published in Science Advances (News Item Utrecht University, 19 April 2017).
Click here for the news item.
Click here for the published article (850 kB).
Click here for more information about the NVC Project PUMA: the end of packaging as an environmental issue. You are welcome to join us for the next project meeting on 4 April 2018.

This news item is also included in our monthly overview, the NVC Members-only Update. If you have any questions, please contact us: info@nvc.nl, +31-(0)182-512411.