Millions of tons of plastic in the ocean aren't floating in plain sight—they're invisible. Scientists have now confirmed that ...

A new study finds there are 27 million metric tons of invisible plastic particles in the North Atlantic alone.

That’s right: China alone dumped nearly 5 billion pounds of plastic waste into the ocean in 2010. But what’s even worse is just how much the study projects these numbers will grow in the ...

Plastic pollution tends to float near the surface and build up in large, rotating ocean currents known as gyres. The ...

To ascertain the quantity of plastic in Earth's oceans, the researchers analyzed a wealth of data, such as "different marine reservoirs, including coastlines, the ocean surface and the deep ocean ...

Nanoplastics—particles smaller than a human hair—can pass through cell walls and enter the food web. New research suggests 27 ...

The Latest. There’s less plastic pollution flowing into the ocean from land than scientists previously thought, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Geoscience.. The ...

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.

A previous study found that between 4.8 million and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic entered the ocean in 2010 from people living within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of the coastline.

The authors say mesopelagic fish, which live in the hazy twilight zone 660 to 3,300 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, may be mistaking these bits of plastic for zooplankton of the same size.

Ocean plastic pollution is a massive environmental problem. Millions of tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year, even plastic that goes in the trash can often ends up in the sea!

All that plastic in the ocean is a climate change problem, too Researchers worry that microplastics may be messing with an important carbon sequestration process. Grist / Getty Images.