Plastic waste in oceans is mainly close to coasts, researchers say
Most of the plastic waste polluting the planet’s oceans is within ten kilometres of the coast, rather than out on the open sea, University of Bern researchers have found.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA/dos
“In all the scenarios we’ve calculated, about 80% of floating plastic waste drifts no more than ten kilometres from the coast five years after it entered the ocean,” said Victor Onink, the study’s lead author, in a University of Bern statement.
The large-scale study, published in the Environmental Research Letters journal, runs against previous models of tracking waste, which suggest that plastic tends to collect in large ocean gyres, or rotating currents.
Not only does it not reach the open seas, but at least over a third of plastic waste also then washes up onto beaches or gets stranded along coastlines, the researchers say.
They warn that this has “serious consequences for the environment, since coastal ecosystems are particularly sensitive to plastic pollution.” They also point out that polluted coasts “dramatically lose their value for tourism”.
More
More
Debris ahoy! Transforming ocean plastic into energy
This content was published on
“We face a disastrous situation,” the foundation president, Marco Simeoni, told reporters in Lausanne on Tuesday. “As the World Economic Forum recently reportedExternal link, if we don’t do anything, by 2050 in terms of weight there will be more plastic than fish in our oceans.” The amount of plastic being produced annually continues to rise…
Between one and 13 million tonnes of plastic waste enter the ocean each year. The issue, which has consequences for marine life as well as coastal ecosystems, has become a major environmental concern.
In 2016, the World Economic Forum predicted that if current trends continued, there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050.
Given the results of the Bern research, however, Onink is sceptical about highly-mediatised efforts to clean up the open seas.
“The concentration of plastic appears relatively low in the open ocean,” he said. “It makes you wonder if resources are really being used most efficiently with these kinds of projects.” For him, a better solution is to prevent plastic reaching the open ocean in the first place, for example by “fishing plastic out of large rivers or removing plastic from coastlines”.
Unsurprisingly, regions of the world with the highest volumes of plastic waste in general also end up having the most affected coastlines, the study found. These include South-East Asia and the Mediterranean region – which is doubly disadvantaged by pollution entering from the Nile river, and by its small and enclosed situation.
Least affected areas are generally less- populated regions like the Poles, the Chilean coast, and some parts of the Australian littoral.
More
More
How to clear the ocean of plastic? With a giant sailing boat
This content was published on
The giant solar-powered catamaran to clean the ocean of plastic is the brainchild of French-Swiss navigator Yvan Bourgnon.
Swiss money laundering office registers record number of reports
This content was published on
The Money Laundering Reporting Office Switzerland (MROS) registered a record number of reports of suspicious activity last year.
Two teens accused of planning terror attack released from custody
This content was published on
The Schaffhausen judiciary has released the two teenagers from custody who allegedly planned bomb attacks in Switzerland.
OECD: Sluggish economic activity slowing growth in Switzerland
This content was published on
Sluggish economic activity at the start of the year is weighing on growth in Switzerland, with GDP expected to fall to 1.1% in 2024.
Report finds mistakes which led to Swiss government data breach
This content was published on
Mistakes were made by both the government and internet company Xplain in the case of a criminal cyber-attack on the Bern-based IT business.
Swiss government wants better gender balance in federal administration
This content was published on
New Swiss government personnel management targets say there must be even more female managers in the federal administration.
Swiss national science foundation funded over 5,000 projects in 2023
This content was published on
In 2023, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) provided a total of CHF961 million worth of funding towards research projects.
Switzerland invites 160 delegations to June Ukraine peace talks
This content was published on
Russia is currently not among the delegations invited to talks aimed at helping bring about peace in the conflict between Moscow and Ukraine.
Survey: air travel most popular way to go on holidays for Swiss
This content was published on
Despite the climate crisis, flying is the most popular mode of transport for private travel – particularly among young, urban and high-income travellers.
Swiss government to use phone data to identify asylum seekers
This content was published on
From April 2025, authorities plan to be able to analyse data from mobile phones, computers and other data carriers to identify asylum seekers.
Large volumes of microplastics exist in Lake Geneva
This content was published on
A recent analysis by the Oceaneye group shows that Lake Geneva contains large quantities of plastic waste smaller than 20 centimetres.
This content was published on
Florian Faure points his tweezers at the surface of a murky cocktail he has just extracted from the Rhône River west of Geneva. “That’s a plastic pellet and those are polystyrene balls,” explains the environmental researcher from Lausanne’s Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). Time for a final sample. He leans over the edge of the…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.