FolioStart free

Environmental Science · Literature

Research papers on Ocean plastic pollution

Recent and highly-cited academic work on ocean plastic pollution, gathered from Semantic Scholar, CrossRef and OpenAlex.

Search all 200M+ papers on this topic, free →Or track new ocean plastic pollution papers automatically as they publish

  1. Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea

    Marcus Eriksen, Laurent Lebreton, Henry S. Carson, et al. · 2014 · PLoS ONE · 4,700 citations

    Plastic pollution is ubiquitous throughout the marine environment, yet estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics have lacked data, particularly from the Southern Hemisphere and remote regions. Here we report an estimate of the total number of plastic particles and their weight floating in the world's oceans from 24 expeditions (2007-2013) across all five sub-tropical gyres, costal Australia, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean Sea conducting surface net tows (N = 680) and visual survey transects of large plastic debris (N = 891). Using an oceanographic model of floating debris dispersal calibrated by our data, and correcting for wind-driven vertical mixing, we estimat

    Save this paper

  2. River plastic emissions to the world’s oceans

    Laurent Lebreton, Joost van der Zwet, Jan-Willem Damsteeg, et al. · 2017 · Nature Communications · 3,972 citations

    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 emissio

    Save this paper

  3. Predicted growth in plastic waste exceeds efforts to mitigate plastic pollution

    Stephanie B. Borrelle, Jeremy Ringma, Kara Lavender Law, et al. · 2020 · Science · 3,157 citations

    Plastic pollution is a planetary threat, affecting nearly every marine and freshwater ecosystem globally. In response, multilevel mitigation strategies are being adopted but with a lack of quantitative assessment of how such strategies reduce plastic emissions. We assessed the impact of three broad management strategies, plastic waste reduction, waste management, and environmental recovery, at different levels of effort to estimate plastic emissions to 2030 for 173 countries. We estimate that 19 to 23 million metric tons, or 11%, of plastic waste generated globally in 2016 entered aquatic ecosystems. Considering the ambitious commitments currently set by governments, annual emissions may rea

    Save this paper

  4. Plastic debris in the open ocean

    Andrés Cózar, Fidel Echevarrı́a, J. Ignacio González-Gordillo, et al. · 2014 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 3,131 citations

    There is a rising concern regarding the accumulation of floating plastic debris in the open ocean. However, the magnitude and the fate of this pollution are still open questions. Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, we show a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density. However, the global load of plastic on the open ocean surface was estimated to be on the order of tens of thousands of tons, far less than expected. Our observations of the size distribution of floating plastic debris point at imp

    Save this paper

  5. Pathways for degradation of plastic polymers floating in the marine environment

    Berit Gewert, Merle Plassmann, Matthew MacLeod · 2015 · Environmental Science Processes & Impacts · 2,128 citations

    Each year vast amounts of plastic are produced worldwide. When released to the environment, plastics accumulate, and plastic debris in the world's oceans is of particular environmental concern. More than 60% of all floating debris in the oceans is plastic and amounts are increasing each year. Plastic polymers in the marine environment are exposed to sunlight, oxidants and physical stress, and over time they weather and degrade. The degradation processes and products must be understood to detect and evaluate potential environmental hazards. Some attention has been drawn to additives and persistent organic pollutants that sorb to the plastic surface, but so far the chemicals generated by degra

    Save this paper

  7. Plastic Accumulation in the Mediterranean Sea

    Andrés Cózar, Marina Sanz‐Martín, Elisa Martí, et al. · 2015 · PLoS ONE · 787 citations

    Concentrations of floating plastic were measured throughout the Mediterranean Sea to assess whether this basin can be regarded as a great accumulation region of plastic debris. We found that the average density of plastic (1 item per 4 m2), as well as its frequency of occurrence (100% of the sites sampled), are comparable to the accumulation zones described for the five subtropical ocean gyres. Plastic debris in the Mediterranean surface waters was dominated by millimeter-sized fragments, but showed a higher proportion of large plastic objects than that present in oceanic gyres, reflecting the closer connection with pollution sources. The accumulation of floating plastic in the Mediterranean

    Save this paper

  8. Plastic as a Persistent Marine Pollutant

    Boris Worm, Heike K. Lotze, Isabelle Jubinville, et al. · 2017 · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · 756 citations

    Synthetic organic polymers—or plastics—did not enter widespread use until the 1950s. By 2015, global production had increased to 322 million metric tons (Mt) year −1 , which approaches the total weight of the human population produced in plastic every year. Approximately half is used for packaging and other disposables, 40% of plastic waste is not accounted for in managed landfills or recycling facilities, and 4.8–12.7 Mt year −1 enter the ocean as macroscopic litter and microplastic particles. Here, we argue that such mismanaged plastic waste is similar to other persistent pollutants, such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) or polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which once threatened a

    Save this paper

  10. Plastic Pollution and Potential Solutions

    Christopher J. Rhodes · 2018 · Science Progress · 664 citations

    A review is presented of the manufacture and use of different types of plastic, and the effects of pollution by these materials on animal, human and environmental health, insofar as this is known. Since 2004, the world has made as much plastic as it did in the previous half century, and it has been reckoned that the total mass of virgin plastics ever made amounts to 8.3 billion tonnes, mainly derived from natural gas and crude oil, used as chemical feedstocks and fuel sources. Between 1950 and 2015, a total of 6.3 billion tonnes of primary and secondary (recycled) plastic waste was generated, of which around 9% has been recycled, and 12% incinerated, with the remaining 79% either being store

    Save this paper

  11. Microbial Ecotoxicology of Marine Plastic Debris: A Review on Colonization and Biodegradation by the “Plastisphere”

    Justine Jacquin, Jingguang Cheng, Charlène Odobel, et al. · 2019 · Frontiers in Microbiology · 521 citations

    Over the last decades, it has become clear that plastic pollution presents a global societal and environmental challenge given its increasing presence in the oceans. A growing literature has focused on the microbial life growing on the surfaces of these pollutants called the "plastisphere," but the general concepts of microbial ecotoxicology have only rarely been integrated. Microbial ecotoxicology deals with (i) the impact of pollutants on microbial communities and inversely (ii) how much microbes can influence their biodegradation. The goal of this review is to enlighten the growing literature of the last 15 years on microbial ecotoxicology related to plastic pollution in the oceans. First

    Save this paper

  12. The fundamental links between climate change and marine plastic pollution

    Helen Ford, Nia H. Jones, Andrew J. Davies, et al. · 2021 · The Science of The Total Environment · 389 citations

    Plastic pollution and climate change have commonly been treated as two separate issues and sometimes are even seen as competing. Here we present an alternative view that these two issues are fundamentally linked. Primarily, we explore how plastic contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the beginning to the end of its life cycle. Secondly, we show that more extreme weather and floods associated with climate change, will exacerbate the spread of plastic in the natural environment. Finally, both issues occur throughout the marine environment, and we show that ecosystems and species can be particularly vulnerable to both, such as coral reefs that face disease spread through plastic po

    Save this paper

  22. Effect of Plastic Ocean Pollution on Marine Life and Human Health in Brazil

    Lucas Augusto · 2024 · International Journal of Environmental Sciences · 1 citations

    Purpose: The aim of the study was to examine effect of plastic ocean pollution on marine life and human health in Brazil. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: The study found that pervasive presence of plastic debris in Brazil's coastal waters threatens marine ecosystems, leading to entanglement, ingestion, and suffocat

    Save this paper

  23. Marine Plastic Pollution: What Will Happen to the Global Plastics Treaty?

    Tony R. Walker · 2026 · Ocean Yearbook Online

    Abstract The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee failed to secure a legally binding Global Plastics Treaty at the second session of INC-5 in 2025 in Geneva. This failure to reach an agreement, highlights the deep geopolitical and economic divisions that limit multilateral environmental agreements. More than 70 countries in the High-Ambition Coalition supported upstream interventions, such as capping plastic production and phasing out hazardous chemical additives. However, fossil-fuel producing member states (members of the Like-Minded Group) supported by petrochemical lobbyists, pushed to limit the text of the treaty to downstream measures, such as improvements to recyc

    Save this paper

Write your paper with these sources

Folio is the integrity-first research workspace: search 200M+ papers, save sources, and write with citations that format themselves. Free for students and researchers.

Start writing free →