Distressing images of turtles with plastic straws sticking out of their bodies or dead seabirds with stomachs brimming with synthetic trash justifiably attract public attention.
However, this pollution extends to the microscopic scale from an increasing number of micro and nano plastics. These tiny particles permeate the depths of the oceans, posing significant health risks to marine creatures and humans alike.
More and more alternatives to plastics are being proposed these days, as the world wakes up to the immense “longevity” of single-use plastics.
One of these alternatives—seaweed—is the focus of Notpla, a London-based startup that has developed packaging that is designed to be composted, dissolved or consumed after use.
The decision to use seaweed was made after considering that it was abundant, grew fast, sequestered carbon from the air and did not require pesticides.
Finally, a bit of good news. Well, sort of. It is not good that plastic finds its way into our oceans and can be detected in just about every sample of water but at least it appears that microplastics do not accumulate in the aquatic food chain.
Scientists have developed a small robotic device that can collect microplastics from the surfaces of oceans, seas and lakes.
Plastic collection devices currently in use mostly use drag nets or conveyor belts to retrieve plastic debris from the ocean. These, unfortunately, are unable to collect microplastics, which enter our food chain after they are consumed by marine animals that eventually end up on our dinner plates.
Plastic pollution is a gigantic problem. Our beaches and waters are littered with plastic, marine life ingests it or gets ensnared and particles are entering our food web and organisms. Microplastics are everywhere now.
The report "Plastic Industry Awareness of the Ocean Plastics Problem" is the third in the ongoing Fueling Plastics series. Plastics are pollutants of unique concern, as they do not break down quickly and accumulate in the environment as more is produced.
As much as 84 percent of the rubbish found on Australian beaches in the past ten years is plastic.
Almost half of all the debris originates from land-based sources (littering, dumping on land, etc), and seven percent from dumping activities at sea.
The remaining 42 percent could not be traced to a specific source as they had broken down into smaller fragments, which would eventually become microplastics.
This was the findings of a study led by University of New South Wales (UNSW) Science, and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
The popular dive spot is southeast of the Philippine capital, Manila.
BBC Philippine correspondent Howard Johnson joined dive professionals from Anilao Scuba Dive Centre as they resumed diving, following the national lockdown. The dive centre is affiliated to the United Nations Environment Programme’s Green Fins, which promotes sustainable marine tourism in South-East Asia.
A new study conducted at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research suggests wind-borne microplastics are a bigger source of ocean pollution than rivers, the route that has attracted most attention to date.
Airborne transport has received much less attention than rivers because only the smallest particles can be blown by the wind and their size makes them difficult to identify as plastic. The scientists concentrated on fine tyre and brake dust as there is better data on how these are produced than tiny microplastics from other sources, such as plastic bottles and packaging.
To understand sea turtle behavior around ocean plastics, the research team compared how sea turtles in a lab setting reacted to smelling odors of turtle food, ocean-soaked plastic, clean plastic and water.
The turtles ignored the scents of clean plastic and water, but responded to the odors of food and ocean-soaked plastics by showing foraging behavior. This included poking their noses out of the water repeatedly as they tried to smell the food source, and increasing their activity as they searched.
