While many Bermudians are concerned about the possible effects of a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, huge amounts of another pollutant are adrift much closer to home.

Researchers from the Sea Education Association (SEA) have discovered millions of pieces of plastic in the Sargasso Sea.

While experts say most of the pieces are small, their impact on the environment could be massive.

The SEA, based in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, set out in June to measure the amount of plastic in the mid-Atlantic. The organisation towed a one metre-wide mesh net alongside their boat, recording how much plastic was caught.

Setting out from Bermuda, the 33-person crew took numerous samples from the area east of the Island.

Based on their findings, more than 5,000 pieces of plastic are afloat per square kilometre, with some areas holding a hundred times more than that.

The findings were based only on the plastic on the surface of the water heavier plastics that have sunk have not been taken into account.

Concentrations of 500,000, as recorded in some areas, rival that of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive 'island' of floating trash around five times larger than the UK.

SEA principle investigator Kara Lavender Law said: "You see objects float by, and you feel there must be another boat nearby that has dumped all this stuff into the water, but there isn't. It comes from the land."

Since January, several Bermuda environmental charities, including Greenrock, KBB, BIOS, along with the Bermuda College came together to form the Sargasso Sea Plastics Project. Its aim is to educate legislators, collect data and raise public awareness of the impact of trash on the oceans.

Judith Lansberg of Greenrock said SEA's results were disappointing, but not surprising.

"In January, Greenrock hosted a visit from the 5 Gyres Project who visited Bermuda on their way to do their own sampling in the North Atlantic Gyre," she said.

"During their visit, they led beach surveys in Bermuda to sample the plastics on our beaches, and there is no doubt the plastic accumulations on our beaches are very similar to those described by the SEA."

Most of the plastic pieces recorded by SEA were around the size of a pencil eraser, and were the same type of material used in bottle caps, straws and plastic bags.

"The shocking thing about these huge plastic accumulations is that there is no way to clean them up," Dr. Landsberg said.

"You can't see islands of trash, it is more like a soup of plastic through thousands and thousands of gallons of water.

"This surely suggests that we have a pressing obligation to reduce our own plastic use and disposal."

Experts have explained smaller pieces can be just as harmful as chemicals in the plastic can kill some fish. Some scientists believe other toxins can be carried up the food chain, eventually causing harm to humans.

SEA chief scientist Giora Proskurowski said: "We know there are certain implications. Entanglement, seabirds and mammals ingesting the plastic, providing a vehicle that could transport foreign species and potentially wreak havoc in various ecosystems.

"But what we don't know is what happens when the pieces degrade.

"Do they accumulate up the food chain? We don't have answers to that, and that's even scarier than knowing what we do know."