Plastic waste has long been a visible – and growing – problem in the oceans around the world, with refusal to once hang on the shores of ancient beaches, the vast expanse of ocean in the Great Pacific waste patch, and endangering marine life. That.
A new report gives a glimpse of the scale of microplastics on the ocean floor. Researchers have made the first global estimate of its kind, with the Australian National Science Agency saying that between 9.75 million and 11.5..87 million tonnes of microplastics – fragments between five millimeters and one micrometer – are embedded in the ocean floor.
It’s more than sea level, and it’s the equivalent of 18 to 24 shopping bags filled with small plastic pieces for every foot of the coast in every continent except Antarctica.
This is an issue that activists have long warned about as the fight to clean up the sea focuses heavily on the elimination of single-use plastic products such as shopping ping bags.
The findings were published in a new study on Monday by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Industrial Research Organization or CSIRO.
“It really points to the ubiquity of the problem. That’s what CSIRO chief scientist and study author Britta Dennis Hardesti said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
Microplastics are not limited to the ocean. They are also found in air particles and are dispersed by wind. Various microplastics were also discovered in the human intestine.
In recent years, hundreds of plastic objects have been found in the stomachs of dead whales around the world.
While plastic bags and straw are banned in cities, the use of disposable plastic packaging has increased amid the coronavirus epidemic as consumers worry about hygiene and contamination.
Over time, some of the plastic breaks into small pieces and sinks into the sea. More cheerful plastics don’t sink on their own and either wash out on the beach or end up in cold water.
Growing microbes and spraying colonies on floating plastics often drown the whole mass from excess weight.
Dr .. Sakhtai said microplastics can be ingested by small plankton and fish along the coast. Once eaten by fish, microplastics can end up in the human food chain.
Dr. Hard. The aim of the study was to give a standard to the problem, Sakhtai said. She described it as the first such account.
Using robotic submarines, scientists collected deep water samples of sand and silt in the Great Australian Byte in 2017, hundreds of miles from shore, and made global estimates based on the average number and size of particles.
The study found zero plastic particles in some deep ocean sediments, but others contained 13.6 particles per gram, 25 times more than the microplastics found in previous deep ocean studies.
Scientists said they have made accurate estimates to take into account the full range of samples. To rule out possible contamination of the samples, they removed fibers or other materials from their calculations.
Dr. Hardesti said it was important to first stop the end of plastic in the ocean. He said he hopes pollution awareness will lead to more sustainable policies and behavioral changes.
“What ends up in the oceans is in the hands of most people,” he said. “They can see that their behavior – their actions and purchasing power – is very powerful and can change as a result.”
