The troubling news that plastic waste is piling up on ocean shores worldwide is not new. In May 2004 the BBC had this report, Plastic Fibre a Major Pollutant
While a picture is worth a thousand words, the plastic bottles shown in that article don’t tell the whole story, because it’s plastic fiber, as stated in the headline, that is the source of concern. Writing in a 2004 Science article, authors Thompson et al. noted:
Over the past 40 years, large items of plastic debris have frequently been recorded in habitats from the poles to the equator. Smaller fragments, probably also plastic, have been reported but have received far less attention.
In the article, a variety of plastic types and sources were noted from samples taken mostly in the U.K.:
Nine polymers were conclusively identified: acrylic, alkyd, poly (ethylene:propylene), polyamide (nylon), polyester, polyethylene, polymethylacrylate, polypropylene, and polyvinyl-alcohol. These have a wide range of uses, including clothing, packaging, and rope, suggesting that the fragments resulted from the breakdown of larger items.