Robot SHARK in River Thames can pick up 1,100lbs of rubbish a DAY

Robot can 'eat' up to 1,100lbs of waste a day - equivalent to 22,700 plastic bottles.

It will also collect data on water quality in the River Thames to monitor water quality.

Plastic waste has doubled globally since 2000, with only nine per cent of this being recycled.

Eight million tonnes of plastics find their way into the ocean every year - the equivalent of one truckload every minute.

The only industrialized western country on the list of top 20 plastic polluters is the United States at No. 20. The US and Europe are not mismanaging their collected waste, so the plastic trash coming from those countries is due to litter, researchers said. While China is responsible for 2.4 million tons of plastic that makes its way into the ocean, nearly 28 percent of the world total, the United States contributes just 77,000 tons, which is less than one percent, according to the study published in the journal Science..