Study measures Atlantic Ocean plastic accumulation
By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News
20 August 2010
A study has measured the amount of plastic debris found in a region of the Atlantic Ocean over a 22-year period. US researchers, writing in Science, suggest the volume of plastic appeared to have peaked in recent years. One reason could be tighter marine pollution rules that prevent vessels dumping their waste at sea. The team said monitoring the free-floating plastic also provided an insight into the behaviour of ocean surface currents. They found plastic, most pieces measuring no more than a few millimetres, in more than 60% of 6,136 samples collected by dragging fine-meshed nets along the ocean’s surface. The researchers – from the US-based Sea Education Association (Sea), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Hawaii – described plastic as a “major contaminant”. … Using a series of tracers, the team was able to estimate that it took fewer than 60 days for plastic to be carried to the “collection centre” from coastal waters on the eastern shores of the US. … They said the global production of plastic materials had increased five-fold between 1976 and 2008, and the amount thrown away in the US has risen four-fold during the past two decades. Meanwhile, the volume being dumped by vessels had fallen as a result of rules introduced in 1988 that prohibited the dumping of plastic at sea. …
At such high surface levels, makes you wonder what they would find under the surface.
The water column untested is absolutely huge. If it is this bad on the surface, what does that really represent for the entire ocean? ~Survival Acres~