Tara Oceans circumpolar expedition that sampled 42 Arctic sites with nets, found hundreds of thousands of mostly tiny bits of plastic per square kilometre (square mile) in the northeastern Atlantic region.

Much of the plastic was apparently old and had floated north from Europe and North America.

Levels were comparable to those in ocean gyres, vast swirling currents nearer the equator, where plastic debris is known to accumulate, they wrote.

‘Ninety-nine percent of the floating plastic in the Arctic was confined in the Greenland and Barents Seas,’ lead author Andres Cozar of the University of Cadiz in Spain said.

‘The plastic pollution in the rest of the Arctic Polar Circle was low or absent,’ he said.
Global warming could open the Arctic to more pollution, partly as the extent of sea ice shrinks.

‘Highloads of marine plastic pollution may become prevalent in the Arctic in the future,’ the study said.

The study said there was ‘special concern’ about the impact of plastic on fragile Arctic wildlife, including on the seabed where bits may eventually sink.

Northern fulmar birds on the Arctic Svalbard islands north of Norway, for instance, have been found with high levels of plastic in their stomachs from discarded plastic bags, fishing nets and other trash.

Separately, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), which was not involved in the report, is examining wider pollution risks from plastics.