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The pathway by which plastics enters the world's oceans. Marine plastic pollution is a type of marine pollution by plastics, ranging in size from large original material such as bottles and bags, down to microplastics formed from the fragmentation of plastic material.
Microplastic is also a type of airborne particulates and is found to prevail in air. [57] [58] [59] Paint appears as the largest source of microplastic leakage into the ocean and waterways (1.9 Mt/year), outweighing all other sources of microplastic leakage (e.g. textiles fibres and tyre dust). [60]
The United States National Academy of Sciences estimated in 2022 that the worldwide entry of plastic into the ocean was 8 million metric tons of plastic per year. [63] A 2021 study by The Ocean Cleanup estimated that rivers convey between 0.8 and 2.7 million metric tons of plastic into the ocean, and ranked these river's countries. The top ten ...
A more recent concern in microplastic pollution is the use of plastic films in agriculture. 7.4 million tons of plastic film are used each year to increase food production. [22] Scientists have found that microbial biofilms can form within 7–14 days on plastic film surfaces, and have the ability to alter the chemical properties of the soil ...
Likewise, humans are also susceptible to microplastic consumption. People who eat seafood also eat some of the microplastics that were ingested by marine life. Oysters and clams are popular vehicles for human microplastic consumption. [57] Animals who are within the general vicinity of the water are also affected by the plastic in the ocean.
Plastics accounts for 80% of waste dispersed in the marine and coastal environment of the Mediterranean Sea. [24] Recent studies focus on the types of plastics found and primarily on the issue of microplastics, both at a global but also at a regional level, as in the case of the Mediterranean Sea, which was identified as a "target hotspot of the world" due to its amounts of microplastics ...
Nurdles that escape from the plastic production process into waterways or oceans have become a significant source of ocean and beach plastic pollution. Plastic pellet pollution that has been monitored in studies is mainly found in the sediments and beach areas and is usually polyethylene or polypropylene , the two main plastic polymers found in ...
Ocean plastic affects many marine species in the form of whole plastic and micro plastics. Since the discovery of bacteria that can feed on plastic, there has been hope that these microbes could help clean the ocean of plastic, but Ramani Narayan, a professor in chemical engineering at Michigan State University says that this viewpoint misses ...