Study shows almost 270,000 tons of plastic floating in oceans

Study shows almost 270,000 tons of plastic floating in oceans

The world's oceans are turning into "plastic soup."

A new scientific study revealed nearly 270,000 tons of plastic broken up into more than 5 trillion pieces littering the world’s oceans. That is enough plastic to fill at least 38,500 garbage trucks.

The study was published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE on Wednesday. PLOS ONE is among many trying to better assess the amount of synthetic material in the ocean and how it is effecting seabirds, fish and the marine ecosystem. The main author of the study is Markus Eriksen who works with the 5 Gyres Institution to reduce the amount of plastic in oceans.

To determine the amount of plastic in the ocean, researchers dragged a fine mesh net to gather the small pieces on the surface. Others counted the larger pieces of plastic from their boats. Only plastic on the sea surface was measured, so any plastic sitting on the ocean floor was not included, according to Fox News. Three-fourths of the estimated amount of plastic was in bits greater than 8 inches.

From 2007 to 2013, researchers crossed the seas surveying most oceans–excluding the Arctic–on 24 different expeditions. Five subtropical gyres were also included in the surveys.Hundreds of visual surveys, along with the surveys on the surface using nets, were arranged into models to come up with the massive number.

Kara Lavender Law, member of the Sea Education Association, said that the researchers gathered plastic in areas where scientists do not have floating debris measurements such as the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic and the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. She also said that the study’s estimate for small plastic pieces that are less than one-fifth of an inch is approximately 35,540 tons.

This can be compared to a study conducted by Spanish researchers that used different methods of gathering the plastic. Researchers from Spain estimated 7,000 to 35,000 tons of small plastic pieces in the ocean. Law stressed the difficulty of measuring plastic in the ocean. However, she found the similarity in results to be encouraging.

Measuring the plastic in the ocean will help scientists discover what it could do to the food chain. Law explained that toxic chemicals from the plastic could end up in food.  She said that people might eat tuna that previously ingested a fish that had eaten plastic that in turn had ingested a fish that had eaten plastic.  Law explained that it is a “plausible scenario” that the plastic from the ocean that is ingested at low levels of the food web could negatively affect those at the high levels of the food chain.

Capt. Charles Moore, founder of the marine education and research group Algalita and one of the study’s co-authors, said that it is the first worldwide assessment of “plastic plague infecting our precious oceans.” He added that it is one of the first steps in spreading awareness about how much plastic is in the entire ocean. He called it “plastic soup” and concluded that consequences are appearing involving displacement of species, invasion of exotic species and the destruction of species.

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