This video is from National Geographic “How the global ocean plastic pollution problem has become ubiquitous”.
Recently, a catastrophic news “Plastic Garbage Patch Bigger Than Mexico Found in Pacific” published last year has caught public attention. It reported a new finding of a huge region of plastic pollution in South Pacific (near the coastal region of Chile and Peru).
The plastic pollution in the ocean not only means floating bottles or buoys which can be easily discovered but also includes the small pieces of plastic debris which may be invisible. So the ocean cleanup is very difficult. Based on the historical data in 2012, the mean abundance of plastic pollution in South Pacific was roughly 71 kg/km2. What a shocking number it is! The extreme increase of the plastic pollution in South Pacific over the last six years has threatened many marine species and seabirds.
The plastic garbage “patch” includes both big piece (macro-plastics) and very small piece (micro-plastics). In a short-term effect, those seabirds and marine species who accidentally ingested or consumed plastics will stick in their tissues forever (just like the image below). The previous research has shown that mussels ingested micro-plastics through gills would transport to the stomach and digestive glands. In biology classes, we learned that toxins will be accumulated through the food chain and magnified in carnivorous species. As a result, more species will be harmed. Eventually, the whole ecosystem may be negatively impacted.
Plastic debris was found in seabird’s stomach; Photo courtesy by Chris Jordan
Right now, the first aid is to clean up the plastic waste in the ocean. This is because the residence time of plastics in the ocean is very long. Also, its degradation time under UV light and water is still uncertain. After breaking into small pieces, micro-plastics will further sink down to the ocean and release toxic chemicals. Although it is a difficult work to clean up all the plastics in the ocean, we still need to try our best to solve the existing garbage. Thus we can prevent further contamination of the marine environment.
Moreover, it is important to increase public awareness of the garbage dumping near coasts. Since most of the containments are anthropogenic, if the general public can get better understandings of the harmfulness of certain behavior, the marine ecosystem will be more sustainable.
In the future studies, scientists should focus more on the problem solving of the ocean plastic pollution, especially appropriate garbage disposal and recycling. Also, an alternative material to plastics that is nontoxic and easily degraded is encouraged to be investigated.
By Jenny Tang
