Microplastic pollution in the world's oceans is often illustrated through evocative images of wildlife caught within large items floating on the surface, or microplastics blending in among the sand on otherwise pristine beaches.

Microplastic pollution in the world’s oceans is often illustrated through evocative images of wildlife caught within large items floating on the surface, or microplastics blending in among the sand on otherwise pristine beaches.

The mass of plastics supplied to the ocean each year is vast, potentially up to 12.7 million tons through riverine input in addition to marine-based sources from fishing, aquaculture and shipping industries; yet, that which is observed on the surface does not match accordingly. Consequently, there are missing microplastic sinks in the marine realm.

New research, published in Frontiers in Marine Science, has identified the North Sea as home to some of these plastic sinks.

    • BruceTwarzenEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      Some 30 years ago when i was a naive child i would watch the news and it was like: rich guy making 120k a day. And three segments later: there is a disaster ahead of us and to fix it we need 100k. And idiot me was actually thinking: that’s not really a problem then, because the rich guy they just talked about could pay that easily. Then i went to sleep thinking the problem is basically solved.