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Japan and China big sources of plastic in North Pacific Garbage Patch: study

  • More than three-quarters of the giant plastic mass found between Hawaii and California comes from the fishing industry, say researchers
  • The Ocean Cleanup says it aims to clean up 90 per cent of floating ocean plastic by 2040, an operation that would cost around €1 billion

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Samples of plastic retrieved from the North Pacific Garbage Patch includes a crate with visible Japanese text, eel traps and nets, all of which originated from fishing activities. Photo: Handout
Holly Chik
More than three-quarters of the plastic mass in the North Pacific Garbage Patch comes from fishing activities, including floating nets and ropes, an analysis of ocean debris shows.
The researchers, from Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup, also identified Japan and mainland China as the top sources of plastic emissions after scanning 230 plastic objects bearing recognisable text in different languages or carrying brand logos or other clues such as an address.

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They found that Japan contributed 34 per cent and mainland China 32 per cent to the formation of the world’s largest build-up of ocean plastic, which could be found between Hawaii and California. They are followed by South Korea, the United States and Taiwan.

“We attribute this observation to inputs from fisheries, with Japan being a major fishing nation, but also to the anthropogenic debris released by the 2011 Tohoku tsunami,” the researchers wrote in an article published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports early this month.

A researcher analyses items caught by System 001B in the North Pacific Garbage Patch, looking for clues on the items’ origin based on language and country codes. Photo: Handout
A researcher analyses items caught by System 001B in the North Pacific Garbage Patch, looking for clues on the items’ origin based on language and country codes. Photo: Handout

As for China, the size and high activity of the country’s fishing fleets in the region could account for a greater chance of lost gear accumulating, said Laurent Lebreton, lead author and head of research at The Ocean Cleanup.

The analysis of 570kg (1,256lbs) of debris from the North Pacific Ocean showed that almost half the plastic objects carried production dates before 2000.

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