Trash Bin at the Top of the World: Can We Prevent Arctic Plastic Pollution?

Stranded polar bears, mining disasters, oil spills. These are the common portrayals of environmental risk in the Arctic. But there's a less-familiar threat to the pristine Arctic environment that demands our attention, too — the growing prevalence of marine litter, and specifically plastic pollution.

Plastics have seemingly inundated every corner of the world. More than three-quarters of all the plastic ever produced is now estimated to be in landfills or littering the environment, in the form of bottles, single-use packaging and fishing and aquaculture gear, and some is finding its way to the Arctic....