London, March 22 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 80,000 tons of plastic are floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge "garbage island" in the eastern Pacific Ocean, nearly 16 times higher than previous estimates, an international research team said in a new study published in the British journal Scientific Reports on March 22.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between California and Hawaii in the western United States, is a huge accumulation area of Marine debris.

An international team led by the nonprofit Ocean Cleanup Foundation conducted an in-depth field sampling of the patch. Their analysis found that the total amount of trash in the dump was far greater than previously thought. By classification, the vast majority of the waste was plastic, with at least 46 percent made up of fishing nets; More than three-quarters of the plastic in the area is waste larger than 5 centimeters, including hard plastic and plastic film.

Also, it is worth noting that microplastics are accumulating rapidly in this area. Microplastics are plastic particles and textile fibers smaller than 5 mm in size and are mainly derived from small plastic particles released directly into the environment and debris from the degradation of large plastic waste.

After comparing historical data, the researchers said the level of plastic pollution in the region has risen significantly since records began in the 1970s.

The report's lead author, Laurent Lebreton of the Ocean Cleanup, said that the rate of plastic accumulation in the area was much faster than in surrounding waters, indicating that more plastic was flowing into the patch than was flowing out, and that it was not yet possible to draw firm conclusions about the specific reasons behind the persistent plastic pollution phenomenon.

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