River Plastic Emissions to the World's Oceans

Overview

Journal Nat Commun

Specialty Biology

Date 2017 Jun 8

PMID 28589961

Citations 231

Authors

Laurent C M Lebreton

Joost van der Zwet

Jan-Willem Damsteeg

Boyan Slat

Anthony Andrady

Julia Reisser

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Plastics in the marine environment have become a major concern because of their persistence at sea, and adverse consequences to marine life and potentially human health. Implementing mitigation strategies requires an understanding and quantification of marine plastic sources, taking spatial and temporal variability into account. Here we present a global model of plastic inputs from rivers into oceans based on waste management, population density and hydrological information. Our model is calibrated against measurements available in the literature. We estimate that between 1.15 and 2.41 million tonnes of plastic waste currently enters the ocean every year from rivers, with over 74% of emissions occurring between May and October. The top 20 polluting rivers, mostly located in Asia, account for 67% of the global total. The findings of this study provide baseline data for ocean plastic mass balance exercises, and assist in prioritizing future plastic debris monitoring and mitigation strategies.

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