Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans is Spiraling Out of Control

Plastic pollution is becoming a serious issue for our world's oceans. Now, scientists have found that nearly 269,000 tons of plastic pollution may be floating in Earth's seas. The findings show exactly how serious the pollution situation has become over time.

Microplastic pollution can be found in varying concentrations throughout the oceans. That said, estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics, both micro and macroplastic, have so far lacked sufficient data. That's why scientists decided to take a closer look to see exactly how much plastic might be in our world's oceans.

In order to make better estimates, the researchers contributed data from 24 expeditions collected over a six-year period from 2007 to 2013 across all five sub-tropical gyres, coastal Australia, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean Sea. The data included information about microplastics collected using nets and large plastic debris from visual surveys, which were then used to calibrate an ocean model of plastic distribution.

So what did they find? Based on the data and the model, the researchers estimate a minimum of 5.25 trillion plastic particles in the ocean weighing nearly 269,000 tons. Large plastics are more abundant near coastlines and degrade into microplastics in the five subtropical gyres. Smaller microplastics, in contrast, are found in more remote regions, such as the subpolar gyres.

"Our findings show that the garbage patches in the middle of the five subtropical gyres are not the final resting places for the world's floating plastic trash," said Marcus Eriksen, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The endgame for micro-plastic is interactions with entire ocean ecosystems."

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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