Scientists trawled waters off the coasts of the UK and US and found many more particles using nets with a fine mesh size than when using coarser ones usually used to filter microplastics. The addition of these smaller particles to global estimates of surface microplastics increases the range from between 5tn and 50tn particles to 12tn-125tn particles, the scientists say.

“The estimate of marine microplastic concentration could currently be vastly underestimated,” said Prof Pennie Lindeque, of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK, who led the research.

She said there may well be even smaller particles than those caught by the fine mesh nets, meaning the numbers “could be even larger again”. Click here to read the research paper.

This latest research suggests that the abundance of microplastic pollution in the oceans is likely to have been vastly underestimated with at least double the number of particles as previously thought.

Another new study click here shows how microplastics have entered the food chain in rivers, with birds found to be consuming hundreds of particles a day via the aquatic insects on which they feed.

Research published last month found microplastics in greater quantities than ever before on the seabed and suggested that hundreds of thousands of tonnes could be blowing ashore on the ocean breeze click here.