Most GPGP Plastic Comes From Fishing • Media Gallery • The Ocean Cleanup

(Rotterdam — September 1, 2022) The Ocean Cleanup has today published new research in the journal Scientific Reports, showing that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) is largely composed of fishing-related plastic waste, with 75% to 86% of all plastic waste in the GPGP identified as coming from offshore fishing activity. Read more in our press release. All content below should be credited to The Ocean Cleanup.

Plastic extraction from System 002, The Ocean Cleanup’s ocean system cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Many crates and buoys originating from fishing activities can be seen in the catch.
Plastic extraction from System 002, The Ocean Cleanup’s ocean system cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Many crates and buoys originating from fishing activities can be seen in the catch.
An item we find in large quantities are eel traps, used for fishing hagfish.
Crew on board the support vessels of System 002, holding up a crate with eel traps. Eel traps is an item we find in large quantities, as are crates.

Plastic extraction from System 002, The Ocean Cleanup’s ocean system cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Many crates and buoys originating from fishing activities can be seen in the catch.
Matthias Egger, Ocean Plastic Researcher at The Ocean Cleanup, analyzing plastic items to find clues on their origin based on language and country codes. This research was done in collaboration with Wageningen University.
Matthias Egger, Ocean Plastic Researcher at The Ocean Cleanup, analyzing plastic items to find clues on their origin based on language and country codes.

Left: origins of hard plastics recovered from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch Right: national sources of riverine plastic into global ocean (i.e. not only GPGP)
Age distribution of floating plastic objects found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Dots represent relative distribution of global plastic production per decade.²
Composition of hard plastic debris larger than 5 cm (excluding nets and ropes) harvested from the GPGP by System 001/B both (a) by mass and (b) by count.