A new study speculates that about 80% of the floating plastic in the Pacific Garbage Patch comes from fishing activities, while straws only account for 0.025% of ocean plastic. The Pacific Garbage Patch has accumulated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic, weighing 80000 metric tons, estimated to account for 30% of the total weight of plastic waste on the world's ocean surface.
The University of Wageningen in the Netherlands collaborated with environmental organization Ocean Cleanup to collect and analyze approximately 6000 pieces of floating debris weighing around 547 kilograms, and summarized early research suggesting that 75% -86% of plastic is discarded and lost in fishing gear, including nets, traps, and buoys. These wastes mainly come from large industrial fishing boats. Currently, there are approximately 4.5 million fishing vessels worldwide, with an estimated annual loss of 640000 tons of fishing gear.
According to data from the Taiwan Marine Conservation Agency, out of the 41 tons of seabed debris cleared in 2020, nearly 90% were discarded fishing gear. Abandoned fishing gear is the deadliest marine debris. Fishing gear is designed to capture animals, but when abandoned in the sea, it continues to indiscriminately kill animals, causing them to starve and suffocate. The more animals struggle, the tighter the rope becomes. Whales captured by large ghost nets can be dragged for a long time until they run out of energy and drown.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, 300 protected sea turtles were entangled in ghost nets and drowned collectively in 2018, and another 300 female sea turtles were killed by ghost nets in 2021. In the Gulf of Oman in the northwest of the Arabian Sea, each ghost net can capture 70 kilograms of marine animals within three months.
In Phuket Bay, USA, an abandoned fishing net can entangle two types of invertebrates every day, one fish every three days and one seabird every five days. Industrial fisheries are now killing marine animals at an unprecedented scale and speed. About 30% of the world's fish catch comes from trawl fishing, which kills all marine life in an indiscriminate net and also kills a large number of 'non target' animals.