A growing plastic smog, now estimated to be over 170 trillion plastic particles afloat in the world’s oceans—Urgent solutions required

As global awareness, science, and policy interventions for plastic escalate, institutions around the world are seeking preventative strategies. Central to this is the need for precise global time series of plastic pollution with which we can assess whether implemented policies are effective, but at...

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Veröffentlicht in:	PloS one Jg. 18; H. 3; S. e0281596
Hauptverfasser:	Eriksen, Marcus, Cowger, Win, Erdle, Lisa M., Coffin, Scott, Villarrubia-Gómez, Patricia, Moore, Charles J., Carpenter, Edward J., Day, Robert H., Thiel, Martin, Wilcox, Chris
Format:	Journal Article
Sprache:	Englisch
Veröffentlicht:	United States Public Library of Science 08.03.2023 Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Schlagworte:	Basins Bias Biology and Life Sciences Control Datasets Earth Sciences Ecology and Environmental Sciences Environmental aspects Environmental Monitoring Estimates International aspects International policy Ocean surface Oceans Oceans and Seas Outdoor air quality Physical Sciences Plastic pollution Plastics Production processes Smog Social Sciences Surface boundary layer Surface layers Time series Trends Waste Products - analysis Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis Wind Australia South Pacific
ISSN:	1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:	As global awareness, science, and policy interventions for plastic escalate, institutions around the world are seeking preventative strategies. Central to this is the need for precise global time series of plastic pollution with which we can assess whether implemented policies are effective, but at present we lack these data. To address this need, we used previously published and new data on floating ocean plastics (n = 11,777 stations) to create a global time-series that estimates the average counts and mass of small plastics in the ocean surface layer from 1979 to 2019. Today’s global abundance is estimated at approximately 82–358 trillion plastic particles weighing 1.1–4.9 million tonnes. We observed no clear detectable trend until 1990, a fluctuating but stagnant trend from then until 2005, and a rapid increase until the present. This observed acceleration of plastic densities in the world’s oceans, also reported for beaches around the globe, demands urgent international policy interventions.
Bibliographie:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23 Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
ISSN:	1932-6203 1932-6203
DOI:	10.1371/journal.pone.0281596