On World Ocean Day 2021, in the first project of its kind to be undertaken in the Atlantic and open ocean, seven bottles fitted with GPS trackers were released at various points along the south coast of the UK.
Designed to mimic a single-use plastic drink bottle, the tracking devices are gathering vital data to help scientists understand how plastic moves across the ocean’s surface and the potential risks plastic poses to marine wildlife along the way. The data will be fed into ocean observing systems and used to ground-truth ocean current observations and modelling.
