A STAGGERING 90 per cent of all river-borne plastic found in the world’s oceans is carried there by just ten rivers - all of them in India, Africa and China.

The Nile and the Niger in Africa, the Yangze, Yellow, Haihe, and Mekong in China, and the Ganges and Indus in India are the chief culprits of pollution from rivers, according to the study.

The reason for this is that all are among the longest rivers in the world, with huge numbers of people living along their banks.

Christian Schmidt, leader of the study released by Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany, said: “Halving the plastic input from the catchment areas of those rivers would be a major success.