Published 2026-07-06 · data 2017 · percent of river plastic emissions
Most river plastic comes from a handful of rivers
Ten rivers carry a large fraction of plastic entering oceans.
Plastic reaching the ocean doesn't flow evenly from the world's rivers. A 2017 estimate by Lebreton et al. attributes about 90% of river plastic emissions to just ten rivers. The remaining tenth is split among all other rivers — Asia and the Pacific account for 5.2%, Africa for 2.8%, and the Americas for 2%. That concentration is the story: a handful of waterways carry most of the plastic load reaching the sea.
1 cell = 0.1 percent of river plastic emissions (0.1% of river plastic to oceans) · 1,000 cells
Context
The shares come from Lebreton et al.'s 2017 estimate of river plastic emissions to the ocean, published in Nature Communications.
For cleanup and policy, the concentration is what matters: efforts aimed at a small number of waterways address the bulk of river plastic, while the world's remaining rivers together account for only the final tenth.
Lebreton et al. river plastic share estimate.
Share and export
Credit this grid as Inagrid — https://inagrid.com/e/2026-07-06-ocean-plastic