Plastic pollution at sea is reaching worrying levels and will go along to grow even if significant activity is taken now to terminate such waste material from reaching the world'south oceans, co-ordinate to a review of hundreds of academic studies.
The review past Deutschland's Alfred Wegener Constitute, commissioned by environmental entrada group WWF, examined almost 2,600 research papers on the topic to provide an overview ahead of a United nations meeting afterward this calendar month.
"Nosotros notice it in the deepest bounding main trenches, at the sea surface and in Arctic bounding main water ice," said biologist Melanie Bergmann who co-authored the study, which was published Tuesday.
Some regions—such as the Mediterranean, the E Mainland china and Yellow Seas—already comprise unsafe levels of plastic, while others risk becoming increasingly polluted in the future, information technology establish.
The authors concluded that nigh every species in the ocean has been affected by plastic pollution and that it's harming important ecosystems such as coral reefs and mangroves.
Equally plastic breaks downwards into e'er-smaller pieces it too enters the marine food chain, existence ingested in everything from whales to turtles to tiny plankton.
Getting that plastic out of the water again is about impossible, so policymakers should focus on preventing any more of information technology entering the oceans in the outset place, said Bergmann.
Some of the studies showed that fifty-fifty if this were to happen today, the amount of marine microplastic would go on increasing for decades, she said.
Matthew MacLeod, a professor of environmental science at Stockholm University who was not involved in the study, said it appeared to be a sound review of existing studies, focused on the effects of plastic pollution.
"The part that can (and will) be argued almost is whether in that location is enough evidence to warrant aggressive activity (such as what is advocated in this report) that will certainly disrupt electric current practices for plastic production, use and disposal," he said.
MacLeod was involved in a split up study recently that also concluded immediate measures are required because of the possible global impacts.
Heike Vesper of WWF said while consumers tin can assist reduce plastic pollution past changing their beliefs, governments have to step up and share the brunt of tackling the problem.
"What we need is a good policy framework," she said, looking ahead to the upcoming U.North. environmental meeting in Nairobi. "It's a global trouble and it needs global solutions."
Citation: Plastic pollution in oceans on track to rise for decades (2022, February 8) retrieved 9 June 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-02-plastic-pollution-oceans-rails-decades.html
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