Page 60: of Marine Technology Magazine (March 2023)

The Final Word

Ocean Plastics

Taking ocean plastic seriously:

It’s Time

Copyright dottedyeti/AdobeStock he oceans are choking on plastics ( 5 to 50 cm) and microplastics the ocean is only now being taken se- plastic waste, increasingly (less than the width of a human hair). riously. Each year the oceanic volume called petro-plastic garbage, The plastic harms or kills everything of plastic grows larger. In short, more

T so named for being derived that lives in the water. We’re now even plastic waste is coming into the oceans from petrochemicals. The scope and concerned how nano plastics (1 to than is being cleared, and production scale of the problem is massive. By the 1,000 nm) in the air are lofted into the is continuing to grow exponentially middle of the century, marine plastic sky from sea foam bubbles might travel as Big Plastics companies pro? t from probably will outweigh all the ? sh in long distances and be consumed by hu- making cheap plastic products from the sea. man beings. cheap fracked shale gas produced by

A staggering 8 million tons of plastic Seventy percent or so of the plastic in Big Oil. wind up in the ocean every year. That’s the oceans is microplastics. Scientists Macroplastics are well-known to the equivalent of one garbage truck full think that the ocean contains 25 trillion cause detrimental effects for sea life. every minute. Experts estimate that 182 pieces of microplastics. There are also They are sometimes mistaken for food. dump trucks of U.S. plastic waste pol- the nanoplastics that are not visible to Getting caught up in ? oating plas- lute the ocean every day. The plastic the naked eye. tic and becoming entangled in plastic degrades and fragments from UV radi- Unfortunately, the broadest dimen- items can be injurious. Fishing nets, ation, oxygen, and friction into macro- sions of the threat of plastic waste in for example, can suffocate or starve to 60 March/April 2023

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