2008 Woodie Awards
Tigri Scientifica
Plastics Permeate the Ecosphere
By: Holly Tuten
Issue date: 10/3/08 Section: News
Pollution in the ocean is not a new thing, but there has been a change in what is considered pollution.
Until recently, research on oceanic pollution focused on mechanistic consequences (an example being the pictures of seabirds and turtles strangled by plastic rings).
Scientists have found plastic contents in the stomachs of most marine life.
Additional research has documented the wounds received from refuse, the amount of trash swept onto seashores and animals drowned in large masses of plastic refuse.
But now people are beginning to investigate marine pollution on a smaller scale.
They're studying nurdles, also known as plastic resin pellets and microplastics.
These pellets are the building blocks of most plastic products available to the everyday consumer.
They enter the environment during manufacture and transport of plastic products and upon degradation of plastic refuse.
Most "biodegradable" plastics are nothing more than nurdles within a biodegradable starch matrix.
They're very small, usually about 0.1 to 0.5 centimeters in diameter (0.04 to 0.20 inches).
They accumulate toxic chemicals from the surrounding environment on their surface.
They litter our beaches, our oceans and land interiors.
A study, published in May 2004 in Science magazine, analyzed sediment composition of a United Kingdom beach and found that one-third of the particles were synthetic polymers; they then found plastic particles on 17 more beaches.
In a Seattle Times article published in April of 2006, Dr. Ebbesmeyer, a researcher who studies ocean currents, said, "If you could fast-forward 10,000 years and do an archaeological dig…you'd find a little line of plastic."
Nurdles are everywhere, and nurdles are moving up the food chain.
The same scientists who studied the British beaches raised small marine animals, such as amphipods, with a very small amount of microscopic plastic particles floating in the aqueous environment.
Within a few days they had ingested the particles.
Until recently, research on oceanic pollution focused on mechanistic consequences (an example being the pictures of seabirds and turtles strangled by plastic rings).
Scientists have found plastic contents in the stomachs of most marine life.
Additional research has documented the wounds received from refuse, the amount of trash swept onto seashores and animals drowned in large masses of plastic refuse.
But now people are beginning to investigate marine pollution on a smaller scale.
They're studying nurdles, also known as plastic resin pellets and microplastics.
These pellets are the building blocks of most plastic products available to the everyday consumer.
They enter the environment during manufacture and transport of plastic products and upon degradation of plastic refuse.
Most "biodegradable" plastics are nothing more than nurdles within a biodegradable starch matrix.
They're very small, usually about 0.1 to 0.5 centimeters in diameter (0.04 to 0.20 inches).
They accumulate toxic chemicals from the surrounding environment on their surface.
They litter our beaches, our oceans and land interiors.
A study, published in May 2004 in Science magazine, analyzed sediment composition of a United Kingdom beach and found that one-third of the particles were synthetic polymers; they then found plastic particles on 17 more beaches.
In a Seattle Times article published in April of 2006, Dr. Ebbesmeyer, a researcher who studies ocean currents, said, "If you could fast-forward 10,000 years and do an archaeological dig…you'd find a little line of plastic."
Nurdles are everywhere, and nurdles are moving up the food chain.
The same scientists who studied the British beaches raised small marine animals, such as amphipods, with a very small amount of microscopic plastic particles floating in the aqueous environment.
Within a few days they had ingested the particles.
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