The Plastic Polluted Pacific Ocean

Henderson Island is a remote island in the South Pacific. Nobody lives there but, despite being uninhabited, its beaches are covered in rubbish. In fact 19 tonnes of trash made up of 37 million separate pieces litter this deserted island.

In What Happens to the Plastic we Throw Out National Geographic explains how domestic plastic trash ends up polluting a remote island in the middle of the South Pacific. As you progress through National Geographic's story a background map of the South Pacific shows the levels of mismanaged municipal plastic waste produced by countries on the Pacific Ocean. Much of this plastic waste eventually ends up in the Pacific. Carry on scrolling and the map updates to show the levels of plastic waste entering the ocean from rivers in Asia and North, Central & South America.

National Geographic identify the Yangtze River as the most polluted river in the world. Most of that pollution eventually ends up in the Pacific by way of the East China Sea. The background map animates the modeled pathways of marine debris to show how the plastic from the world's rivers ends up creating the huge plastic gyres polluting our oceans.