Oceanography 10 October 2016 The Ocean Cleanup
It is a commonly held belief that plastic pollution is spread from ocean surface to seabed. Our newest study, published today in Nature Scientific Reports, shows that at least for buoyant plastic bigger than a sand grain (0.5mm), this is not the case, primarily residing on or near the surface. It also reveals that conventional methods to study ocean plastic underestimate microplastic loads by up to 97% due to ocean mixing processes that push part of the debris just below these sampling devices. Understanding how plastic is distributed in the ocean is important to assess its impact, and allows us to adequately dimension our ocean cleanup systems.…[Continue reading…]