Fig. 2
From: Legacy oceanic plastic pollution must be addressed to mitigate possible long-term ecological impacts
a Modelled distribution of plastic debris afloat at sea. b Legacy oceanic plastic pollution remaining in our oceans after turning off plastic emissions from land. Model particles are advected using data on sea surface circulation following the methodology of Lebreton et al. 2012 [58], from significant inland sources of plastic pollution as reported in Meijer et al. 2021 [59]. A beaching term is added using the formulation presented in Lebreton et al. 2022 [60] to represent the stranding of floating debris. Particles are continuously released from 1993 to 2020 in (a) while the influx of modelled debris is stopped from 2010 in (b). Results are presented for the year 2020