What they found was strange. Despite the drastic increase in plastic produced since the 1970s, the researchers estimated there were between 7,000 and 35,000 tons of plastic in the oceans.

The Ocean Cleanup aims to be a temporary effort, with the ambition to reduce floating ocean plastic pollution by 90% by 2040. We will cease to exist once our mission of clean oceans has been achieved.

Pieces of plastic debris found in the oceans are smaller than many people think. Most are measured in millimeters. (Image credit: Sea Education Association) ...

An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the ocean each year – equivalent to dumping in a garbage truckload of it every minute. A new report calls on the US to help stem the ...

Plastic trash is now so ubiquitous that researchers have found hundreds of tons of it floating in the Arctic Ocean. It may not sound like much, but it’s a surprising amount given the area’s ...

Concentrations of plastic debris in surface waters of the global ocean. Colored circles indicate mass concentrations (legend on top right). ( Cozar et al, 2014 .) ...

Although the debris comes in all shapes and sizes, almost all of it is plastic. Debris washed ashore from the 2011 Japanese tsunami is a part of the mess, but it’s far from the only plastic on ...

Plastic waste permeates the world's oceans. It shows up on beaches, in fish and even in Arctic sea ice. A new report makes clear the U.S. is a big part of the problem.

And thus began the story of the great Pacific garbage patch, a swath of plastic debris, chemical sludge and other trash the size of Texas that is trapped in a vortex between ocean currents.[See ...

A study of plastic trash hauled out of the Pacific Ocean found that most of it had been colonized by coastal life that was thriving right next to species that normally live in the open sea.

For a few years now, [Richard] of Tropical Ocean Cleanup fame has been working hard to clean the Philippines of the plastic trash that litters everything, and washes down the canals and rivers into… ...

An oceanographer who noticed a disappearing act in which the surface of the ocean went from confetti-covered to clear now suggests wind may driving large amounts of trash deeper into the sea.