![]() ![]() Like most experts, Jambeck believes the solution lies not in cleaning up the oceans but in reducing and containing plastic waste on land, where most of it originates. It was her groundbreaking research in 2015, including her calculation that an average of 8.8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year, that captured the world’s attention and helped transform marine plastics into a top environmental concern. “The problem can’t be solved if you don’t know what it is,” said Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia environmental engineering professor who was one of the leaders of the expedition. Sampling the river and the land and air around it, and interviewing more than 1,400 residents, the team sought to find out where, why, and what kind of plastic was getting into the Ganges-and from there into the Indian Ocean. ![]() A team of 40 scientists, engineers, and support staff from India, Bangladesh, the United States, and the United Kingdom traveled the full length of the river twice, before and after the monsoon rains that dramatically swell it. In 2019 the National Geographic Society sponsored a research expedition to one of those rivers: the Ganges, which flows across northern India and Bangladesh, through one of the largest and most heavily populated river basins in the world. ![]() But it’s clear that rivers, especially rivers in Asia, are major arteries. Less is known about how the waste gets to the ocean. Most of the research about plastic waste has focused on plastic already in the oceans and its potential for harm-it poses a lethal threat to a wide range of wildlife, from plankton on up to fish, turtles, and whales. ![]()
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