Plastic debris in the open ocean
Andrés Cózar,Fidel Echevarría,J. Ignacio González-Gordillo,Xabier Irigoien,Bárbara Úbeda,Santiago Hernández-León,Alvaro T. Palma,Sandra Navarro,Juan García-de-Lomas,Andrea Ruiz,María L. Fernández-de-Puelles,Carlos M. Duarte +11 more
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TLDR
Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, this work shows a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density.Abstract:
There is a rising concern regarding the accumulation of floating plastic debris in the open ocean. However, the magnitude and the fate of this pollution are still open questions. Using data from the Malaspina 2010 circumnavigation, regional surveys, and previously published reports, we show a worldwide distribution of plastic on the surface of the open ocean, mostly accumulating in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres with comparable density. However, the global load of plastic on the open ocean surface was estimated to be on the order of tens of thousands of tons, far less than expected. Our observations of the size distribution of floating plastic debris point at important size-selective sinks removing millimeter-sized fragments of floating plastic on a large scale. This sink may involve a combination of fast nano-fragmentation of the microplastic into particles of microns or smaller, their transference to the ocean interior by food webs and ballasting processes, and processes yet to be discovered. Resolving the fate of the missing plastic debris is of fundamental importance to determine the nature and significance of the impacts of plastic pollution in the ocean.read more
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Importance of seasonal sea ice in the western Arctic ocean to the Arctic and global microplastic budgets
Seung-Kyu Kim,Hee-Jee Lee,Ji-Su Kim,Sung-Ho Kang,Eun-Jin Yang,Kyoung-Ho Cho,Zhexi Tian,Anthony L. Andrady +7 more
TL;DR: It is highlighted that WAO ice zone may play a role as a sink of global MPs as well as a source of Arctic MPs in sea ice, snow and melt pond water from the western Arctic Ocean.
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Setting the scene for Mediterranean litterscape management: The first basin-scale quantification and mapping of floating marine debris.
C. Lambert,Matthieu Authier,Ghislain Dorémus,Sophie Laran,Simone Panigada,Jérôme Spitz,O. Van Canneyt,Vincent Ridoux +7 more
TL;DR: Using data from the first international basin-scale survey of the Mediterranean Sea to provide the first abundance estimate of floating mega-debris and map their distribution over the entire Mediterranean Sea, which shows the highest densities were observed in the central Mediterranean, and the lowest in the eastern basin.
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Polystyrene micro-/nanoplastics induced hematopoietic damages via the crosstalk of gut microbiota, metabolites, and cytokines.
TL;DR: In this article , the authors evaluated the hematopoietic toxicity induced by polystyrene micro-nanoplastics and potential mechanisms via combining 16S rRNA, metabolomics, and cytokine chips.
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Coprecipitation—An Efficient Method for Removal of Polymer Nanoparticles from Water
Asma Batool,Suresh Valiyaveettil +1 more
TL;DR: Increasing concentrations of micro-and nanoparticles of common polymers are beginning to cause significant damage to our environment as discussed by the authors, and techniques such as coagulation and flocculation are commonly used.
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Toward the Detection and Imaging of Ocean Microplastics With a Spaceborne Radar
TL;DR: A new method is presented for detecting and imaging the global distribution of ocean microplastic distribution and its temporal variability from space, which relies on an assumed reduction in responsiveness to wind-driven roughening caused by surfactants that act as tracers for microplastics near the surface.
References
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Microplastics in the marine environment
TL;DR: The mechanisms of generation and potential impacts of microplastics in the ocean environment are discussed, and the increasing levels of plastic pollution of the oceans are understood, it is important to better understand the impact of microPlastic in the Ocean food web.
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Lost at sea: where is all the plastic?
Richard C. Thompson,Ylva S. Olsen,Richard P. Mitchell,Anthony Davis,Steven J. Rowland,Anthony W. G. John,Daniel F. McGonigle,Andrea E. Russell +7 more
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Journal ArticleDOI
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TL;DR: Model calculations and experimental observations consistently show that polyethylene accumulates more organic contaminants than other plastics such as polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride, and PCBs could transfer from contaminated plastics to streaked shearwater chicks.