Micro Plastics Cause Major Problems Even for Deep Sea Marine LifeFrom 1950 and 2015, plastic production has reached 8.3 billion tons. 6.3 billion of this were either discarded and hauled to sit on landfills or are making a disturbance in the ecosystem. This problem is not an isolated case but a global problem.
The most recent highlighted incident in plastic pollution is the curvier beaked whale that washed up dead in Philippine shores carrying 40 kilograms of plastic waste in its stomach. Although the number of marine life dying because of ingesting plastic debris are increasing each day, the fact that plastic has taken down a creature in such a size has prompted for more urgent actions and efforts to battle the world's plastic problems.
To be able to determine the extents of plastic waste problems, scientists have conducted a study that looks into the plastic-contaminated water. Sadly, there is a possibility that all bodies of water in the world have already been contaminated by plastic.
A year ago, plastic bags were seen to have reached even the depths of the Mariana Trench, which is actually the deepest of all the oceans in the world. The problem on plastic has escalated drastically that the thought that even small sea creatures have ingested plastic particles is a probability.
Dr. Alan Jamieson, a marine scientist, led a team that collected crustaceans from different deep-sea trenches. The study is a part of Sky Ocean Rescue Project. The research aims to determine if the plastic waste has reached all the deep-sea trenches including, Mariana Trench, the New Hebrides Trench, the Kermadec Trench, the Japan Trench, and the Atacama Trench.
The results of the team's studies yielded shocking bad news. 72% of the crustaceans sampled from deep-sea trenches have ingested micro plastic which stayed in their digestive track. 100% of the crustaceans that were collected from Mariana Trench turned out to have plastic particles in their bodies.
The sadder part, as reported by Dr. Jamieson, most of the contaminated sea creatures do not have sufficient data, especially prior to its contamination. This means no baseline data has been established to better understand the sea creatures. The manmade microfibers that the scientists found in the stomachs of the crustaceans prove that these plastic particles are already accumulating even in the deep sea ecosystems.
The marine scientist further added that the deep sea could be the last stop for all debris. He explained that if trash debris is on shore or on rivers, these would be washed off to sea and eventually, down to the depths of the ocean where it will sit for a long time and keep accumulating.
