Despite westerners being lectured by climate activists like Greta Thunberg, a study has found that around 90 per cent of plastic waste polluting earth's oceans comes from Asia and Africa.

During her U.S. tour, Thunberg cited "horrifying pictures of plastic in the oceans," as one of the primary reasons why Americans should listen to her.

However, researchers at Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research discovered that a small number of rivers account for the vast majority of plastic pollution and none of them are located in western countries.

"The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88-95 percent of the global load into the sea," Dr. Christian Schmidt, a hydrogeologist who led the study, told the Daily Mail. "The rivers with the highest estimated plastic loads are characterized by high population – for instance the Yangtze with over half a billion people."