A team of researchers in the United States and Australia led by Jenna Jambeck, an environmental engineer at the University of Georgia, analyzed plastic waste levels in the world’s oceans. They found that China and Indonesia are the top sources of plastic bottles, bags and other rubbish clogging up global sea lanes. Together, both nations account for more than a third of plastic detritus in global waters, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.
In 2010, 8.8 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste in the ocean was traced back to China while 3.2 million metric tons came from Indonesia. The United States is also guilty of polluting oceans with plastic, but at a much lower level than China. Annually, 0.3 million metric tons of waterborne plastic garbage comes from the United States.
