If you’ve been reading us for a any length of time then you’re aware of the plastic problem in the ocean. You’re also likely aware that the plastic that finds its way into the water can and does stick around for a long time. But it isn’t all old trash washing up on shore. Scientists have found fairly new waste on a remote island and that’s a sign that we need to do better.

The island named Inaccessible Island is located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Scientists found plastic, a lot of plastic and most of it was recent drink bottles. Although they did find some samples that were decades old, there were quite a few bottles from the last two years.

These bottles seem to be coming from merchant shipping and not just . . . people littering although their presence in the water indicates that people are in fact littering. It’s clear that better monitoring needs to be done in the shipping sector.