by According to a study published in PLOS, New Zealand scientists estimate that plastic pollution in the world’s oceans has reached “unprecedented levels” since 2005, with some 170 trillion pieces of plastic currently floating in the ocean, with a total weight estimated 2.3 million tons. If left unchecked, the rate at which plastic enters the ocean could increase several times over the next few decades. The researchers collected plastic samples from more than 11,000 sites around the world, focusing on the 40-year period from 1979 to 2019. The results showed a modest trend in plastic entering the ocean before 1990, a fluctuation between 1990 and 2005, and a spike thereafter. Plastic pollution in the ocean comes from a variety of sources: fishing nets, buoys, discarded clothes, car tires and single-use plastics that eventually break down into microplastics. Only a small fraction of plastic is currently properly recycled, and a lot of it ends up in landfills, and if landfills are not managed properly, plastic waste finds its way into the environment and ends up in the ocean.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281596
https://news.sciencenet.cn/htmlnews/2023/3/496310.shtm
