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
Citations
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Abundance of non-conservative microplastics in the upper ocean from 1957 to 2066.
TL;DR: It is found that most plastics accumulate in the North Pacific, with the highest concentrations predicted in the East Asia Seas and central North Pacific.
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Microplastic-associated bacterial assemblages in the intertidal zone of the Yangtze Estuary
TL;DR: High-throughput sequencing was used to profile the bacterial communities attached to microplastic samples from intertidal locations around the Yangtze estuary in China, finding the structure and composition of plastisphere communities varied significantly among the locations.
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Photoreforming of Nonrecyclable Plastic Waste over a Carbon Nitride/Nickel Phosphide Catalyst.
TL;DR: An inexpensive and nontoxic carbon nitride/nickel phosphide (CNx|Ni2P) photocatalyst is utilized to successfully reform poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) to clean H2 fuel and a variety of organic chemicals under alkaline aqueous conditions.
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All is not lost: Deriving a top-down mass budget of plastic at sea.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply a system engineering analytical approach and propose a tentative "whole ocean" mass balance model that combines emission data, surface area-normalized plastic fragmentation rates, estimated concentrations in the ocean surface layer (OSL), and removal from the OSL by sinking.
Screening of microplastic particles in and down-stream a wastewater treatment plant
Kerstin Magnusson,Fredrik Norén +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) as entrance routes for microplastic particles to the marine environment is evaluated in the context of the Sw...
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
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