Ten Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans (2018)

The researchers multiplied these concentrations by the rivers’ water discharge to calculate the total weight of plastic flowing into the sea. The results, published last November in Environmental Science & Technology, show that rivers collectively dump anywhere from 0.47 million to 2.75 million metric tons of plastic into the seas every year, depending on the data used in the models. The Yangtze alone dumps up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea.

Source: www.scientificamerican.com