Author: Costas Velis, Lecturer in Resource Efficiency Systems, University of Leeds

We have used machine learning to identify the biggest plastic pollution hotspots across more than 50,000 towns, cities and rural areas worldwide. Our new global model reveals the most detailed picture of plastic pollution ever created with the highest environmental concentrations in India, predominantly because so much of its waste isn’t collected. Plastic has been found everywhere – from deep ocean trenches to the highest mountain tops, but these observations only reveal isolated snapshots of the overall plastic pollution picture. A bigger challenge is to find out where and how this plastic reaches the environment in the first place, so…