The total amount of plastic floating in the North Atlantic Ocean as particles of less than 1 micrometer each is estimated at 27 million tons, according to a study by the Royal
The total amount of plastic floating in the North Atlantic Ocean as particles of less than 1 micrometer each is estimated at 27 million tons, according to a study by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and Utrecht University.
The results were published 09 July 2025 in the scientific journal Nature.
For this research, Utrecht master student Sophie ten Hietbrink worked for four weeks aboard the research vessel RV Pelagia. On a trip from the Azores to the continental shelf of Europe, she took water samples at 12 locations where she filtered out anything larger than one micrometer. “By drying and heating the remaining material, we were able to measure the characteristic molecules of different types of plastics in the Utrecht laboratory, using mass spectrometry,” Ten Hietbrink says.
The research by NIOZ and Utrecht University provides the first estimate of the amount of nanoplastics in the oceans.
Extrapolating the results from different locations to the whole of the North Atlantic Ocean, the researchers arrived at the estimated amount of 27 million tons of nanoplastics. “A shocking amount,” Ten Hietbrink believes. “But with this we do have an important answer to the paradox of the missing plastic.” Until now, not
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