Researchers from 5 gyres’s research institute Los Angeles on December 10 presented a new assessment report ocean pollution with plastic trash. According to their research, which they themselves call the most evidence-based assessment, available today, currently in the waters of the world about 269 thousand tons of plastic waste floats in the ocean. This figure scientists obtained by studying the data of 24 sea expeditions conducted around the world over the past six years, the agency reports. Reuters. Plastic bags, bottles, toys, bottle caps, nipples, toothbrushes, shoes, buckets, ball deodorants, fishing equipment, toilet seats – this is far from complete a list of what can be found in the ocean today. As notes director of research institute Marcus Eriksen, current pollution levels were much higher than shown previous studies.
According to Ericksen, who led the study, 92% ocean-polluting plastic is a “microplastic” then there are elements of large items destroyed by exposure sun, waves, sharks and other large fish or other methods. IN In recent years, environmentalists have increasingly raised the alarm about pollution ocean plastic. He kills a huge number of seabirds, mammals and other living things disrupting oceanic ecosystems. According to the researchers, plastic enters the oceans from rivers and densely populated coastal areas, as well as from ships, overlooking the open sea. Large plastic objects that are in a large number fall into the water from coastlines, often in the end find themselves on the territory of five world subtropical cycles – in the northern and southern parts of the Pacific Ocean, northern and southern parts Atlantic and Indian Ocean. At the center of these cycles plastic trash accumulates in huge “garbage spots” where usually the plastic is shredded to the above microplastics. According to the current study, within five of the oceanic circuits is now floating around 5.25 trillion such plastic particles. Individual tiny particles of plastic, the size of which may not exceed the size of a grain of sand, they even get to the most remote polar regions.
According to the researchers, such particles easily absorb chemical contaminants such as PCBs, DDT and others. These toxins subsequently end up in marine food chains – in organism of fish and other sea creatures, and as a result – into the body person. Source: gismeteo.ru
