Remote South Atlantic Islands Are Flooded With Plastic

Now, reports Marlene Cimons at Nexus Media, that pollution is getting even worse. A new study in the journal Current Biology shows that plastic trash on the beaches and in the ocean has increased tenfold in the just the last decade and a hundredfold over the last three decades.

“Three decades ago these islands, which are some of the most remote on the planet, were near-pristine,” lead author David Barnes of the British Antarctic Survey says in a statement. “Plastic waste has increased a hundredfold in that time, it is now so common it reaches the seabed. We found it in plankton, throughout the food chain and up to top predators such as seabirds.”