A new study has estimated that the world's oceans contain anywhere from 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic garbage, as of 2010.

According to CNN, the new study appears in the journal Science and also sets out to determine which countries are producing the most of such pollution. The researchers tracked mismanaged waste, which occurs when garbage is not properly disposed of.

China was discovered to have the most mismanaged waste per year and 13 Asian countries occupied the top 20 places in terms of plastic waste in the ocean. For the study, the researchers relied on data from the World Bank on 192 coastal countries.

"The study is not to point fingers at people, it wasn't to focus on the countries," study lead author Jenna Jambeck, of the University of Georgia, told CNN. "The purpose was to make a global estimate."

In those 192 countries, the researchers estimated there was 275 million metric tons of total plastic waste generated. As is its nature, plastic is rarely ever truly destroyed, but recycled, discarded or improperly disposed.

"For the first time, we're estimating the amount of plastic that enters the oceans in a given year," study co-author Kara Lavender Law, a research professor at the Sea Education Association, said in a press release. "Nobody has had a good sense of the size of that problem until now.

"Jenna created a framework to analyze solid waste streams in countries around the world that can easily be adapted by anyone who is interested.

"Plus, it can be used to generate possible solution strategies."

Past studies have put the growth of plastic production since 1974 at 620 percent. With so much plastic in the world and the material part of just about everyone's daily life, Jambeck told CNN proper disposal of it is paramount.

"When the waste was natural material, we could leave it and not think about it," she said. "Even disposing of it in the land was fine, but plastic has increased 650 percent in the last 40 years.

"It's a wake-up call. We need to look at this and the way we're collecting and containing our waste."