Plastic Waste From UK Waters Causes 'Extreme' Damage to the Arctic

Plastic pollution from UK shores is moving toward the Arctic, where it greatly harms the environment, new research, cited by media outlets on Tuesday, revealed.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Erik van Sebille, an oceanographer at Imperial College London, told The Guardian on Tuesday about the new research presented at the July 4-10 Royal Society’s summer science exhibition, which is devoted to the issue of marine plastic pollution, particularly in the Arctic.

"What we found, quite shockingly and unexpectedly, is that most UK plastic ends up in the Arctic. It does extreme harm there we think… The ocean currents are like conveyor belts moving UK plastic very fast up north, which is probably the worst place for plastic to be at this moment," van Sebille told the newspaper.

He said that plastic would become more dangerous and might contribute to greater pollution in connection with global warming, as currently a large portion of the plastic garbage is frozen but it might one day melt and spread over greater territories, propelled by water currents.

The scientist said that the animals were strongly affected by plastic waste, adding that the researchers hardly ever found no plastic particles in the carcass of marine animals used for scientific experiments. He said that plastic could doom certain species to starvation.

#Gadv guest to the Arctic #CleanUpSvalbard from plastic garbage drifting on Ocean currents! Thanks for caring! pic.twitter.com/gYUwrA2FVC

— G Expedition (@g_expedition) 4 July 2016

​Last year, a scientific report revealed that tiny particles of plastic garbage from the United Kingdom and northwestern Europe had settled near the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic circle.