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Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic

Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. Here we characterise and quantify a major ocean plastic accumulation zone formed in subtropical waters between California and Hawaii: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Our model, cal...

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Autores principales: Lebreton, L., Slat, B., Ferrari, F., Sainte-Rose, B., Aitken, J., Marthouse, R., Hajbane, S., Cunsolo, S., Schwarz, A., Levivier, A., Noble, K., Debeljak, P., Maral, H., Schoeneich-Argent, R., Brambini, R., Reisser, J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5864935/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29568057
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22939-w
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author Lebreton, L.
Slat, B.
Ferrari, F.
Sainte-Rose, B.
Aitken, J.
Marthouse, R.
Hajbane, S.
Cunsolo, S.
Schwarz, A.
Levivier, A.
Noble, K.
Debeljak, P.
Maral, H.
Schoeneich-Argent, R.
Brambini, R.
Reisser, J.
author_facet Lebreton, L.
Slat, B.
Ferrari, F.
Sainte-Rose, B.
Aitken, J.
Marthouse, R.
Hajbane, S.
Cunsolo, S.
Schwarz, A.
Levivier, A.
Noble, K.
Debeljak, P.
Maral, H.
Schoeneich-Argent, R.
Brambini, R.
Reisser, J.
author_sort Lebreton, L.
collection PubMed
description Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. Here we characterise and quantify a major ocean plastic accumulation zone formed in subtropical waters between California and Hawaii: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km(2); a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported. We explain this difference through the use of more robust methods to quantify larger debris. Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of fishing nets. Microplastics accounted for 8% of the total mass but 94% of the estimated 1.8 (1.1–3.6) trillion pieces floating in the area. Plastic collected during our study has specific characteristics such as small surface-to-volume ratio, indicating that only certain types of debris have the capacity to persist and accumulate at the surface of the GPGP. Finally, our results suggest that ocean plastic pollution within the GPGP is increasing exponentially and at a faster rate than in surrounding waters.
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spelling pubmed-58649352018-03-27 Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic Lebreton, L. Slat, B. Ferrari, F. Sainte-Rose, B. Aitken, J. Marthouse, R. Hajbane, S. Cunsolo, S. Schwarz, A. Levivier, A. Noble, K. Debeljak, P. Maral, H. Schoeneich-Argent, R. Brambini, R. Reisser, J. Sci Rep Article Ocean plastic can persist in sea surface waters, eventually accumulating in remote areas of the world’s oceans. Here we characterise and quantify a major ocean plastic accumulation zone formed in subtropical waters between California and Hawaii: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). Our model, calibrated with data from multi-vessel and aircraft surveys, predicted at least 79 (45–129) thousand tonnes of ocean plastic are floating inside an area of 1.6 million km(2); a figure four to sixteen times higher than previously reported. We explain this difference through the use of more robust methods to quantify larger debris. Over three-quarters of the GPGP mass was carried by debris larger than 5 cm and at least 46% was comprised of fishing nets. Microplastics accounted for 8% of the total mass but 94% of the estimated 1.8 (1.1–3.6) trillion pieces floating in the area. Plastic collected during our study has specific characteristics such as small surface-to-volume ratio, indicating that only certain types of debris have the capacity to persist and accumulate at the surface of the GPGP. Finally, our results suggest that ocean plastic pollution within the GPGP is increasing exponentially and at a faster rate than in surrounding waters. Nature Publishing Group UK 2018-03-22 /pmc/articles/PMC5864935/ /pubmed/29568057 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22939-w Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Lebreton, L.
Slat, B.
Ferrari, F.
Sainte-Rose, B.
Aitken, J.
Marthouse, R.
Hajbane, S.
Cunsolo, S.
Schwarz, A.
Levivier, A.
Noble, K.
Debeljak, P.
Maral, H.
Schoeneich-Argent, R.
Brambini, R.
Reisser, J.
Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
title Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
title_full Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
title_fullStr Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
title_full_unstemmed Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
title_short Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
title_sort evidence that the great pacific garbage patch is rapidly accumulating plastic
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5864935/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29568057
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22939-w
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