The Yangtze is one of then ten most polluted rivers in the world for plastic Getty ImagesMichael Gove is pressing for more of Britain’s overseas aid budget to be spent on reducing plastic pollution of the oceans after a study found that 90 per cent of the waste came from ten rivers in Asia and Africa. The environment secretary has urged the Department for International Development (Dfid) to consider increasing the tiny proportion of the £13 billion annual aid budget that is spent on the problem at present. Two of the rivers, the Nile and the Niger, are in Africa, and the other eight are in Asia: the Yangtze, Yellow, Haihe, Pearl, Mekong, Amur, Ganges and Indus, according to the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. Last month Mr Gove discussed solutions to marine plastic pollution with Lewis Pugh, the…

Source: The Times December 12, 2017 00:01 UTC