The problem of plastic pollution in the ocean is well known but the exact size of that problem wasn't, until now.
New research has suggested there could be many more tiny particles of waste floating just beneath the surface of the world's second largest ocean than researchers previously realised.
In the decades that the world’s discarded plastic waste has been finding its way in to the environment, some of it has broken down into tiny pieces that wildlife mistake for food, the BBC reports.
Scientists set out to find out where that microplastic - particles smaller than the diameter of a human hair, had ended up, in an ocean-sieving expedition from the UK to the Falklands.
The research has revealed that there is as much as 21 million tonnes of plastic particles suspended in the top 200m of the ocean.
The findings, which are based on an analysis of samples and on computer modelling, highlight the largely invisible scale of the pollution clogging the Atlantic Ocean.
The Scientific team only searched for the three most commonly used packaging plastics, so believe their estimation is conservative.
They say decades of plastic waste has been washed out of rivers or even blown on the wind and into the ocean.
Some environmental groups say the Coronavirus pandemic has caused people to increase their use of single-use products.
Conservationist Susannah Bleakly says these days it’s now more common to find disposable masks than plastic bags on beaches.
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