Quantifying Floating Plastic Debris at Sea Using Vessel-Based Optical Data and Artificial Intelligence

Despite recent advances in remote sensing of large accumulations of floating plastic debris, mainly in coastal regions, the quantification of individual macroplastic (> 0.5 m) remains a challenge. Here, we have trained an object-detection algorithm by selecting and labeling footage of floating plastic debris recorded offshore with GPS-enabled action cameras aboard vessels of opportunity. Macroplastic numerical concentrations are estimated by combining the object detection solution with bulk processing of the optical data. The first results are promising, and the data is comparable to previous observations using different sampling methods.