By using satellites currently in orbit, researchers managed to acquire an unprecedented view of the emissions and accumulation areas of marine litter. This opens up multiple possibilities to improve the fight against plastic pollution. 

Marine littering has grown into a global environmental problem, and is recognised as an urgent priority on international sustainability agendas. A full 80% of this litter is plastic. Continued efforts in mapping its presence in water surfaces have produced important results, such as the discovery of the so-called plastic island in the middle of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Due to the vastness of the ocean, however, field measurements remain limited. This makes satellite-based observations one of the best hopes for large-scale monitoring of marine pollution.  

In a work published today in Nature Communication, a group of international researchers, including JRC, established that accumulation patches of floating litter (also called windrows) can be identified in images taken by Copernicus satellites. By automatically analysing more than 300 000 remote sensing images of the Mediterranean Sea, researchers identified thousands of litter windrows. This new analysis made it possible to detect the most polluted areas, determine seasonal variability patterns and the extent of land-based emissions. 

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