Posted: 12/24/2014
Trigger
The publisher of the Science Journal posted this piece of news this week based on this PLOS article with the frightening title “Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea”.
The first sentence of the above news article reads “More than 5 trillion plastic particles weighing 268,940 tons are estimated to be floating in Earth’s oceans. ”
0.7 KG Of Plastic Are Floating On Average On Each Square Kilometer Of Ocean Surface
This should have been the headline. Sounds very different from 269,000 tons total.
If you do not believe me here is my source for ocean surface area from NOAA National Geophysical Data Center. The number is 361,900,000 km2.
Doubts About The Estimate
On the other hand, 0.7 Kg of plastic per each square kilometer of ocean surface may sound little, but appears to be too high to be true. I have serious doubts about this estimate of 269,000 tons total.
In the above article, the researchers mention “Plastics Europe, a trade organization representing plastic producers and manufactures, reported that 288 million tons of plastic were produced worldwide in 2012 [41]. Our estimate of the global weight of plastic pollution on the sea surface, from all size classes combined, is only 0.1% of the world annual production.” (emphasis added). Perhaps, that was the plausibility check these researchers used. Do we have any estimates as to how much plastic ends up in the oceans per year? Perhaps, the estimate is low relative to total annual production, but it is high to how much plastic actually ends up in our oceans.
We also learn little about natural degradation of plastic from UV radiation or activity of microorganisms.
A Fairly Simple Engineering Problem
Given today’s technologies it should be easy and fairly cheap to scoop up this pollution from the Ocean surfaces. So what is the big deal in the end?
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