The total amount of microplastics that settles at the bottom of the oceans has tripled in the last two decades. This was reported by the press service of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
The seabed is considered the final destination of plastic entering the water. Despite this, scientists do not fully understand the rate at which such bottom sediments accumulate, especially for garbage of different sizes, from large particles such as bottles and bags to microscopic ones.
Spanish scientists decided to analyze microplastic deposits and find out the deposition rate of particles up to 11 microns. To do this, with the help of the ship Sarmiento de Gamboa, they extracted their cores from the bottom of the Spanish Ebro River delta. The river was chosen for analysis because the vast majority of plastic enters the sea from these rivers.
It turns out that the analyzed sediments have remained unchanged on the seafloor since they formed decades ago. “This has allowed us to see how polyester deposition from synthetic fibers in fabrics has increased since the 1980s, but especially in the last two decades, as well as polyethylene and polypropylene particles from packaging, bottles and food films,” he explains. One of the authors of the study, Michael Grelod -. The share of these three types of particles reaches 1.5 mg per kilogram of sediment collected, the most common being polypropylene, followed by polyethylene and polyester.”. Decomposition of plastic occurs only on beaches, on the surface or in the water column, remaining almost unchanged even after half a century at depths.
In addition, the rate of deposition of microplastic particles coincided with the rate of increase in the production and consumption of plastic products. The amount of plastic particles deposited on the seafloor has tripled since 2000.
Source: Port Altele
