Floating Plastic Pollution from Europe and the US Is Accumulating in the Arctic

Plastic in its many forms is one of the obvious impacts of humanity on Earth; it’s everywhere and virtually impossible to destroy.

Polar Bears in the Arctic are often in the news and
this time it is because of plastic. While Arctic species
might well be troubled by plastic so is the huge range
 of species in Australia/'s many rivers and streams.

Frequent publicity is about the troubles arising from plastics in such exotic places as the Arctic, as discussed here, but equally this human construct is causing equally serious troubles in rivers and streams throughout Australia.

The low population of the Arctic Circle means little plastic waste is generated there. However, a new study has shown that the Greenland and Barents Seas (east of Greenland and north of Scandinavia) are accumulating large amounts of plastic debris that is carried and trapped there by ocean currents.

The new study, published today in Science Advances, found that the Greenland and Barents seas have accumulated hundreds of tons of plastic debris composed of around 300 billion pieces, mainly fragments around the size of a grain of rice. The vast majority of these fragments originate form the North Atlantic.

The team behind the study is composed of researchers from eight countries, led by Professor Andrés Cózar from the University of Cadiz in Spain, and including Dr Erik van Sebille from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.

Read the Science and Technology Research News story - “Floating Plastic Pollution from Europe and the US Is Accumulating in the Arctic.”