The Independent reports that from the Thames to the Lake District, Britain’s iconic waterways are full of plastic pollution, according to a new analysis.

In recent years, scientists have found plastic scattered throughout the ocean, as far down as the Mariana Trench and even embedded in Arctic ice. But the new research shows the problem also exists closer to home, with up to 1,000 tiny pieces of plastic found per litre in the worst-polluted rivers.

Photo by Kate Ter Haar under creative commons https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode