In the past few years, plastic pollution has been all over the media. But if you explore the history of science, it turns out that the problem really isn’t all that new: some scientists have been aware of plastic in the ocean for over half a century. So how was plastic pollution first discovered? And why didn’t we hear about it earlier?

MPIWG-Alumna, journalist and podcaster Anja Krieger talks to scientists who drew attention to the problem long before it was widely discussed. This podcast is the German version of the Plastisphere episode "The Discovery of Plastic Pollution" and is produced by Deutschlandfunk Kultur.