This story is part of a series on ocean plastics.

Roughly 3,000 miles from any major population center, there’s an uninhabited island in the eastern Pacific Ocean that, curiously, has the highest density of plastic waste reported anywhere in the world

The shores of Henderson Island have amassed a staggering 38 million pieces of trash ― and that’s with human beings rarely stepping foot on it, according to a new study.

“Henderson Island has the misfortune of being located adjacent to the South Pacific Gyre, a large area of the ocean which (like the other four gyres in the world) accumulates significant quantities of plastic pollution,” Jennifer Lavers, a lead researcher for the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, told HuffPost by email Wednesday.

Trash is piled up on Henderson Island's East Beach. (Photo: Jennifer Lavers)

The raised coral island, which is one of four British-owned islands known as the Pitcairn group, is the focus of a report co-authored by Lavers and published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. Its findings highlight the powerful effect that plastic pollution has had on the planet in just the last half century.

In the case of Henderson Island, where colorful plastics slather its East Beach like seashells ― in some cases serving as makeshift homes for hundreds of crabs ― the accumulation of debris is proving to be unstoppable.

Hundreds of crabs make homes out of plastic debris on Henderson Island. This crab inhabits an Avon cosmetics jar. (Photo: Jennifer Lavers)

Approximately 68% of the beach’s debris is buried in the sediment. Altogether, there are an estimated 37.7 million items, weighing 17.6 tons, accumulated on the island.

In addition to sullying the island’s natural beauty, wildlife has been found eating the plastic and getting entangled in it. Plastic barriers are also being created, which have reduced sea turtles’ ability to lay eggs, the report states.

Most of the trash found on the island has been linked to fishing activities or drifting trash from China, Japan and Chile, the report noted.

Arrows pointing counter-clockwise around Henderson Island indicate the direction of major oceanic currents that carry the trash. (Photo: Dr Jennifer Lavers)

Lavers emphasized that, no matter the source of the trash, we all play a role.

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“As far as I’m aware, there is virtually nowhere in the world that isn’t being impacted by marine plastic pollution,” Lavers said. “While some places are worse hit than others, if we did not clean it up, it would indeed accumulate.”

“One of the big ‘take home’ messages here is no country (or individual) gets a free pass ― clearly we all have/had a role in creating the plastic pollution issue plaguing the world’s oceans, so we all have an equal role in cleaning it up AND preventing it from getting worse. Pointing the finger rarely helps,” she said.

Unfortunately for Henderson Island, which is infrequently visited by researchers, there are no cleanup efforts underway. It’s not because no one cares; it’s because it’s “not feasible,” Lavers said.

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“If all we ever do is clean up, that is literally all we will ever do. We must change our behaviour, our consumption patterns ― the tap needs to be shut off, urgently,” she said. “Even if we did somehow manage to clean Henderson, my colleague and I estimated (in our research paper) that 13,300 new pieces of plastic wash up on Henderson each day. Within months we’d be right back where we started.”

Henderson Island isn’t the only island affected by such human waste.

On the southern side of Hawaii’s Big Island, Kamilo Point resembles a dumping ground where thousands of pounds of trash collect each year.

“The Hawaiian archipelago acts like a sieve, collecting debris that was floating around the Pacific Ocean and accumulating it along our shores,” Megan Lamson, a survey diver for the state’s Division of Aquatic Resources, told HuffPost earlier this month.

So-called garbage patches are also known to move and congregate trash throughout the oceans. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program, much of the debris is small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately visible to the naked eye.

“It is possible to sail through the ‘garbage patch’ area and see very little or no debris on the water’s surface,” NOAA’s website states.

Marine debris accumulation locations in the North Pacific Ocean are seen. (Photo: NOAA Marine Debris Program)

How can you help? NOAA’s website provides a list of small steps people can take to reduce plastic trash from getting into the ocean. It includes using reusable coffee mugs and shopping bags as well as packing snacks in reusable containers rather than in disposable plastic bags.

“These steps are just a start, but they’re all things we can do with minimum impact to our daily lives. Even incorporating one of these actions into your life can make a difference in the amount of plastic pollution in our ocean,” the website states.

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Also on HuffPost

Reduce use of all plastic products, but especially single-use ones

Plastics are an invaluable material, used to make everything from medical equipment to parts of buildings, and nixing them completely from your daily life would be near-impossible. “Plastic has done incredible things for us as a society and it has an appropriate place,” said Nick Mallos of the Ocean Conservancy.



What we need to remember is to minimize our plastic waste (and really, all waste just generally) ― that includes recyclable plastics and compostable or biodegradable ones too.



“Someone might buy a new iPhone and say, 'Well, since I recycled my old phone with Apple, I’m all good.' But Apple doesn’t tell you just how little of that iPhone actually gets recycled,” said Adam Minter, author of Junkyard Planet: Travels in The Billion-Dollar Trash Trade. “People need to stop thinking of recycling as a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card. You haven’t actually done anything good for the environment. You’ve just done something less bad.” (More on that below.)



“If we really want to deal with the waste problem we’re facing, we need to think deeper about the nature of consumption itself,” Minter said.



Reducing single-use plastic products are especially key. Single-use plastic packaging, like plastic bags, containers, straws and cutlery, is the “biggest source of trash” found in or near water bodies worldwide, according to Mallos.



Start bringing your own reusable bag to the supermarket and a reusable bottle for your water; refuse a straw when you order a beverage and leave a set of reusable cutlery at your desk at work.



Click here to learn more tips and tricks on how you can give up single-use plastics.

Don't litter

This might seem straightforward, but preventing litter is a critical action to ensure that plastic waste gets properly disposed of and doesn’t end up in our seas or other environments.



According to environmental engineer and plastics expert Jenna Jambeck, mismanaged waste like litter is the number one cause of plastic garbage is the world’s oceans. That plastic bag that got caught in a breeze could end up in a storm drain; that empty plastic bottle left on a beach could get carried out by a tide.



Ocean Conservancy recommends always “taking five” whenever you leave a space to ensure that you’ve collected all your trash and disposed of it properly.



Plastic bags, which often can’t be recycled (more below), are especially prone to becoming litter as they are easily carried away in the wind (yet another reason to not use them!). If you must throw one away though, be sure it’s balled up or weighed down so it can’t easily float away.

Recycle when you can, and do it right

Recycling plastics is much more complicated than you might think. It’s so complex, in fact, that a significant amount of discarded plastics (even the ones you put into the recycling bin) don’t end up being recycled. In general, less than 7 percent of all the plastic that Americans throw away each year are recycled and about 8 percent is combusted in waste-to-energy facilities. The rest end up in landfills.



The reasons for these low numbers are manifold, said Darby Hoover, a waste management specialist with the Natural Resources Defence Council. But generally, it boils down to two major problems: Firstly, there are many different kinds of plastics and not all of them are easily recycled; and secondly, consumers often aren't aware of these differences and therefore don't dispose of plastics in the best way.



“You know that little triangle on plastic products? The little triangle is not an indicator that something is recyclable. Instead, it’s merely a designation — numbered 1 to 7 — of what kind of plastic it is, what polymer that plastic is,” explained Hoover. A number 1, for instance, indicates that the item is made of Polyethylene terephthalate (or PET, for short), a material typically used to make bottles and microwaveable food containers; while a number 2 indicates high-density polyethylene, the stuff plastic grocery bags are usually made of. The most complicated designation is number 7, which indicates all other plastics -- including products with a mixture of various plastics in them and also compostable plastics.



Recyclers use these numbers to determine which items can be recycled at their facility and which can’t. Different kinds of plastics typically can’t be recycled together, and many facilities won’t accept certain types of plastic at all, like styrofoam, vinyl and plastic film products like plastic bags and cling-wrap (these products have been known to gum up recycling equipment).



To add to the confusion, local municipalities across the U.S. have differing rules when it comes to recycling plastics. Some might accept type 7 plastics, for instance, but others will not.



“No matter where you live, you have to check the local municipality for their rules,” said Hoover, who recommended reviewing your local city or town website for more information. You also have to continue checking in, she added, as these rules often change without much warning.

Choose non-synthetic fabrics when possible

Studies have found that microplastics — plastic fragments less than 5 millimeters long — can get washed out of synthetic clothing, like those made of polyester or acrylic.



A single cycle of a washing machine could release more than 700,000 microplastic fibers into the environment, concluded one 2016 paper.



Natural fabrics to consider instead include organic cotton, wool, flax and hemp.

Say no to microbeads

Plastic microbeads are sometimes added as an exfoliating agent to personal care and beauty products like face scrubs, soaps and toothpaste. These tiny plastic pieces can pass unfiltered through sewage treatment systems and end up in local waterways, and eventually the sea.



Recognizing the potential risk that microbeads pose to marine environments and possibly human health, several countries, including the U.S. and the United Kingdom, have introduced bans of the substance.



Many of these bans have yet to be enforced, however, and some are limited in scope, so remain vigilant when purchasing products that could have microbeads in them (look out for terms like “exfoliator,” "scrub,” “buff” and “polish”).



Visit the Beat the Microbead website to learn more.

Participate in cleanup efforts

Every year, Ocean Conservancy organizes the International Coastal Cleanup, a global event that asks volunteers to collect plastic and other garbage from coastal areas and waterways. Last year, more than 700,000 people in more than a 100 countries participated in the event, collecting more than 18 million pounds of trash in a single day.



In 2017, the cleanup event is planned for Sept. 16 ― but you don’t have to wait till then to do something. Ocean Conservancy has a DIY toolkit to help you organize cleanups in your own community.

Support plastic bag legislation

Using a plastic bag for groceries may seem convenient, but the ubiquitous sack is one of America’s greatest waste challenges. An average American family of four uses more than 1,500 plastic bags every year, according to the NRDC. Each bag is typically only used for about 12 minutes. Yet since plastic bags are very rarely recycled, most of them end up in landfills where they can languish for many hundreds of years.



Reducing your use of plastic bags is one important way to mitigate this waste problem. But another way to make a big impact is to support local, state and federal single-use bag legislation -- specifically legislation that supports the reduction of all kinds of single-use bags including plastic and paper, according to Jennie Romer, a New York City lawyer and founder of the website Plastic Bag Laws.



Across the country, there are already many ordinances in place related to single-use bags. Last year, California became the first state to ban single-use plastic bags at all retail outlets, and in 2010, Washington D.C., implemented a 5-cent fee for all single-use bags, both plastic and paper. Cities and towns in Texas, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Colorado, among other states, have also embraced single-use bag legislation in some form or other.



For most of the nation, however, plastic and other single-use bags remain widely available. According to Romer, it’s extremely challenging to pass a plastic bag law — or even keep one in place (New York City is a prime example) — due to fierce opposition led mostly by lobbyists from the petroleum and plastic industry. “They fight bag regulations tooth and nail,” Romer said. “And their resources far outweigh that of the volunteers and grassroots community groups that are leading this fight.”



Preliminary evidence suggests that single-use bag legislation can be very effective in reducing waste. In Ireland, for instance, where a plastic bag tax was introduced in 2002, plastic bag use reportedly dropped by more than 90 percent in just a few weeks. In San Jose, California, a 2011 plastic bag ban resulted in a reduction of plastic litter by “approximately 89 percent in the storm drain system, 60 percent in the creeks and rivers, and 59 percent in City streets and neighborhoods,” stated a city report released almost a year after the ban was put in place.



Find out more about plastic bag legislation around the country and how you can get involved by visiting the Plastic Bag Laws website.

Support companies that offer solutions to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics

Engage your family and friends

Waste is not an issue people often talk about, but for change to occur, the conversations need to start.



“This is a critical issue that’s tied up in so many other environmental concerns,” said Minter. “Yet people seem to have an aversion to it. They just don’t take much of an interest. Where’s the Paris landfill conference? You don’t see environmental groups flying celebrities into anywhere to talk about waste.”



The dialogue can begin in your own home and among your own friends. Start engaging your loved ones and your community on this important issue.

Track your progress

Start paying attention to the amount of plastic you use and waste on a daily basis. And as you start cutting back on your consumption, jot down a tally of all the plastics you “save.” You’ll likely be amazed.



Ocean Conservancy also has a Clean Swell App which lets you track your beach cleanup efforts. It lets you share your progress on social media and to submit data directly into a global ocean trash database.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.