Supported By IMPACT 11/12/2018 05:45 am ET Scientists say there’s more to the pollution problem than the huge masses of debris that grab public attention. By XiaoZhi Lim The crisis of plastics filling up the world’s oceans is more complex than it appears. Contrary to popular belief, marine plastic debris does not simply cluster in large floating patches. In fact, only a tiny amount of the plastic in the seas drifts on the surface. So, where’s the rest of it? “We really don’t know where most of the plastic is ending up in the ocean,” said Kara Lavender Law, an ocean plastic scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Decades of surveying the oceans have found only a quarter of a million metric tons of floating plastic debris worldwide, whereas in 2015, Law and collaborators estimated that between 4 and 12 million metric tons of plastics were moving from land to the coasts and oceans each year. “We can account for somewhere between 1 and 3 percent of the plastics coming in from land in a single year,” Law says. The missing plastic could have met any one of four possible fates, and most scientists agree that the lion’s share is likely… Read full this story
- 33 years later, 2 newborn babies’ deaths remain unsolved
- Huge mystery lump found under crater on moon
- G-20 urges ‘voluntary action’ on marine plastic crisis
- G20 environment ministers agree to tackle marine plastic waste
- Mystery of racist photo in governor's yearbook left unsolved
- 30 years later, Kait's death is still a mystery
- Cigarette butts pose big microplastic hazard in the oceans
- The plastics habit is hard to break
- Splitting tectonic plate could eventually shrink Atlantic Ocean
- Retailers join call for Maine to ban plastic bags statewide
A Huge Mystery About Ocean Plastics Remains Unsolved have 278 words, post on www.huffingtonpost.com at November 12, 2018. This is cached page on Business Breaking News. If you want remove this page, please contact us.