The oceans and large seas of the planet currently accumulate some 170 trillion pieces of plastic, a figure that is equivalent to some 21,000 polluting particles for each of the people who inhabit the Earth (8,000 million).
Marine pollution by plastics amounts to approximately 2.4 million tons, its presence has accelerated in the last three decades and continues to grow, according to one of the most exhaustive studies that have been carried out to date on this matter, whose Results have been published (March 8) in the journal PLoS One (of the Public Library of Science group).
The figures that are now presented refer to the particle count and estimated mass of small plastics in the surface layer of the oceans and large seas (the Mediterranean is included), without counting the residues present in the deep layers and the seabed.
The author team of the study, led by Markus Eriksen, co-founder and researcher at The 5 Gyres Institute, in Santa Monica (California, United States), has reviewed and updated the data collected between 1979 and 2019 at 11,777 floating control stations distributed in various ocean points. From these records, the authors have made an extrapolation for the planet as a whole, with the average results indicated at the beginning.
Among the conclusions of this review of the recent history of marine pollution, the signatories expose this worrying reality: “We did not observe a clear detectable trend [in the growth of the presence of floating plastics in the oceans and great seas] until 1990; between Between 1990 and 2005, a fluctuating but stagnant trend was detected, and from 2005 a rapid increase was observed”. The data analyzed reaches up to 2019 but everything seems to indicate that contamination continues to grow rapidly.
In addition to the data, the authors highlight the need to urgently address this problem of pollution of the marine environment. In fact, the headline of the scientific study puts it this way: “A growing plastic smog, now estimated at more than 170 trillion plastic particles floating in the world’s oceans: urgent solutions are required”
Marcus Eriksen, reiterates this same idea in statements released by the Public Library of Science: “We have found an alarming trend of exponential growth of microplastics in the global ocean since the beginning of this millennium, reaching more than 170 trillion plastic particles. This is a clear warning that we must act now on a global scale. We need a strong and legally binding UN Global Treaty on plastic pollution that stops the problem at the source.”
“Understanding the accumulation of plastic in the oceans to date could provide a critical baseline to help address this form of pollution,” the authors note in the first part of their summary of their findings.
Previous studies have focused primarily on the northern hemisphere oceans near the world’s most industrialized nations, while other studies have found increases in ocean plastic over shorter periods of time.
In this study, Eriksen and his colleagues analyzed data from stations located in six marine regions: North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Mediterranean.
Although these results are biased toward trends in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, where most of the data was collected, Eriksen and co-authors suggest that the rapid increase since 2005 reflects global growth in plastic production or changes in waste generation and management.
Without widespread policy changes, the researchers predict that the rate at which plastics enter our waters will increase approximately 2.6 times by 2040. To reverse this trend, the authors call for legally binding international policy intervention to minimize ecological damage, social and economic pollution by plastics.
