14 Mar 2023 --- A newly released study by the 5 Gyres Institute reveals the average number of plastic particles in the world’s oceans adds up to 170 trillion plastic particles, weighing two million metric tons. The study’s co-authors used previously published and new data, including 11,777 samples of floating ocean plastics focusing on a 40-year period between 1979 and 2019, to create a global time series that estimates the average counts and mass of microplastics in the ocean surface layer. “[The findings] do not include particles less than 1/3 mm. It does not include the seafloor, seashore, rivers, lakes, deserts and mountains, so there’s likely hundreds of trillions more particles of plastic on the planet,” Marcus Eriksen, researcher with the 5 Gyres Institute tells PackagingInsights.
