What long-term threats does plastic pollution have on the Earth, and specifically marine life? This is what a recent study published in Nature Sustainability hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the global risk assessment of plastic pollution on marine life. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, legislators, and the public better understand the ecological and environmental risks posed by plastic pollution and the steps that can be taken to mitigate them.
For the study, the researchers used a series of computer models to evaluate the global distribution of plastic pollution and the risks they pose to marine life. The goal of the study was to ascertain the global regions whose marine life faces the greatest risk of plastic pollution and the processes, including toxic chemicals, consumption, pollution transmission, and entrapment. In the end, the researchers found that the mid-latitude North Pacific and North Atlantic regions, along with parts of coastal East Asia and the North Indian Ocean.
“Plastic pollution in the ocean is widely recognized as a global concern, but the ecological risks it poses remain poorly understood,” said Dr. Yanxu Zhang, who is an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Tulane University and a co-author on the study. “We wanted to fill this knowledge gap by systematically assessing how plastics interact with marine life and ecosystems through multiple risk pathways.”
It is estimated that the world produces approximately 400 million tons of plastic annually with approximately 8 million tons going into the world’s oceans. It is hypothesized that the ocean plastic population will exceed the ocean fish population by 2030 with ocean plastic pollution estimated to reach 29 million metric tons by 2040. Therefore, studies like this can help recognize the need for plastic pollution mitigation while protecting marine life worldwide.
What new risks about plastic pollution will researchers discover in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Nature Sustainability, EurekAlert!, Earth.org
