Natural History Wanderings

NPR reports

Scientists are trying to understand how much plastic humans are pumping into the ocean and how long it sticks around. A study published this week says it may be much more than earlier estimates.

By some measures, the plastic trash that’s floating on the surface of the water only accounts for about 1% of the plastic pollution that humans generate.

“If we are missing 99% of plastic that we thought we have put in, it has to be somewhere,” says Katsiaryna Pabortsava, a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre in the United Kingdom.

She and her colleagues set out to look for the missing plastic debris.

Read story about what the found at Far More Microplastic In Atlantic Ocean Than Previous Estimates, Study Finds : NPR