Tracing ocean plastic to its source

Most of the plastic washing up on the shores of Inaccessible Island, a UK protectorate in the Tristan da Cunha group, in the middle of the South Atlantic ocean, comes from a place we haven't fully considered. We assume that a lot of the flotsam in the Pacific ocean gyres comes from big rivers in Asia mostly, and from us, too. But it's hoped not just governments but the International Maritime Organisation will sit up and take notice of a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It's been conducted by a team from the University of Capetown, led by ecologist Professor Peter Ryan.