Six countries account for the majority of the floating trash in the Pacific Ocean.

According to recent data, just six nations are responsible for more than 90% of the enormous floating ‘trash’ patch of plastic in the Pacific Ocean.

According to the report, Japan and China are the two nations where overfishing is responsible for the majority of the waste patch.

After careful study and sampling, a group of scientists from Wageningen University and the Ocean Cleanup project published their findings in the Scientific Reports journal on Thursday, September 1.

Tens of thousands of tonnes of floating plastic waste have been detected in the North Pacific Ocean’s subtropical oceanic gyre, according to the paper.

It appears that there are millions of square kilometres worth of such trash. The accumulation zone is referred to as the North Pacific Garbage Patch (NPGP).

The survey found that fishing nets and ropes make up a sizable portion of the trash. The remainder is primarily made up of hard plastic.

Approximately 573 kilogrammes of dry, hard plastic trash that was gathered in 2019 with assistance from The Ocean Cleanup group was analysed in the current study.

More than a quarter of the shards were discovered during the investigation to be from ‘abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear’ (known as ALDFG).

The researchers were able to find out the country of origin of 232 objects. As per the study, the largest percentage is from Japan at 33.6%. China was next at 32.3%, South Korea at 9.9%, the United States at 6.5%, Taiwan at 5.6% and Canada at 4.7%.