UNEP overcomes global data challenges to track and reduce marine litter

The Wilson Center, one of the nation’s premier nonpartisan policy organizations, teams with the United Nations Environment Programme UNEP and the IBM Data Science and AI Elite team to develop a solution to track and reduce marine litter.

Plastic waste is destroying marine ecosystems at a rapid pace – from ruining beaches to killing baby turtles to destroying coral on the sea floor. With half the world’s plastic produced in the last 13 years and 8.8 million tons washing into the oceans annually, few places on earth have escaped its reach. Plastic litter fouls the remote, icy coves of Antarctica, the pristine shores of Réunion and Mauritius, and even the unfathomable reaches of the 10,000 meter-deep Mariana Trench.

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