Oceans awash with micro-plastic pollution due to ‘unprecedented’ increase

Once micro-plastics enter the ocean, they are incredibly difficult to remove. Photo: Getty

There has been a “rapid and unprecedented” increase in the amount of plastic entering the planet’s oceans since 2005, a new study has found.

The research, published in the journal PLOS ONE, reveals that about 170 trillion particles, mostly made up of micro-plastics, were afloat in 2019.