The beaches of one of the world’s most remote islands have been found to be polluted with the highest density of plastic debris reported anywhere on the planet, in a study published in the prestigious US scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Despite being uninhabited and located more than 5,000 kilometres from the nearest major population centre, Henderson Island is littered with an estimated 37.7 million pieces of plastic.
Part of the UK’s Pitcairn Islands territory, the island is so remote that it’s only visited every five to ten years for research purposes, but its location near the centre of the South Pacific Gyre ocean current makes it a focal point for debris carried from South America or deposited by fishing boats.
15 May 2017
New research finds there’s no escaping ocean plastic.