Arctic ice contains record amount of microplastic

[Krista 629]

Quote

If you are wondering what happens to all those cigarette butts flicked on sidewalks and plastic packing peanuts blowing down the street, researchers have found an alarming amount of particles from them deep in the ice of the Arctic Ocean.

The record amount of microplastic appears to be courtesy of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and increased fishing and shipping in the Arctic, researchers at the Alfred Wegener Institute of the Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research report.

The study raises concerns about the impact on human and sea life.

Ice samples from five regions across the Arctic Ocean contained up to 12,000 of the tiny particles per liter of sea ice, researchers say. More than half the particles trapped in the ice were less than 1/500th of an inch wide — less than one-tenth the thickness of a credit card.

“They could easily be ingested by arctic microorganisms,” said biologist and report author Ilka Peeken. “No one can say for certain how harmful these tiny plastic particles are for marine life, or ultimately also for human beings.”

Microplastic refers to plastic particles, fibers, pellets and other fragments with a length, width or diameter ranging from microscopic to two-tenths of an inch.

The types of plastic showed a "unique footprint" in the ice allowing the researchers to trace them back to possible sources. Some can be traced to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of plastic, floating trash halfway between Hawaii and California, that has grown to more than 600,000 square miles, the report says.

Researchers determined that ice floes contain particularly high concentrations of polyethylene, used primarily in packaging material.

"We assume that these fragments represent remains of the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch and are pushed along the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean by the Pacific inflow," the study says.

A high percentage of paint and nylon particles pointed to the intensified shipping and fishing activities in some parts of the Arctic, the study says.

The researcher team gathered the ice samples during three expeditions in 2014 and 2015. The study was released in the journal Nature Communications.  

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/04/25/arctic-ice-choked-record-amount-microplastic-cigarette-butts-packing-material/549115002/

 

[Systemagic 5,459]

We humans are trash

[Chris 58,351]

2 hours ago, Systemagic said:

We humans are trash

just the environmentally unconscious ones  

[Krista 629]

3 minutes ago, Chris Morlock said:

just the environmentally unconscious ones  

Right. Btw, I made the font smaller for you so that you can read it better.

[Chris 58,351]

3 minutes ago, QueenCedar101 said:

Right. Btw, I made the font smaller for you so that you can read it better.

yes i noticed that, thank you