A new study has found that an alarming 8.8 million tons of plastic waste is dumped into the world’s ocean each year.
HNGN noted that the study was published in a recent edition of the journal Science and the amount of garbage going into the seawater is staggering.
"Using the average density of uncompacted plastic waste, 8 million metric tons - the midpoint of our estimate - would cover an area 34 times the size of Manhattan ankle-deep in plastic waste," said co-author of the study Roland Geyer, an associate professor at University of California Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management.
Moreover, he said that the amount of eight million tons “is how much plastic was produced worldwide in 1961."
The study found that China was responsible for most of the waste dumped in the ocean annually with around 2.4 million tons, followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria and Bangladesh, Reuters notes.
The U.S. was ranked No. 20 on the shameful list.