If you follow any sort of news these days stories of plastics in our oceans is wide spread. It is distressing and frustrating because by and large it is an environmental issue that could be mitigated. But plastic is everywhere and is engrained into our daily lives. Now it is not only an issue to organisms in coastal areas and open-ocean, but recent research has found plastics in the very deepest parts of the ocean. Even sea creatures living on the seafloor almost 7 miles deep have been found to have ingested microplastics.
Research led by Newcastle University’s Dr Alan Jamieson, as part of an awareness campaign by Sky Ocean Rescue, examined the stomach contents of crustaceans sampled from deep trreches spanning the entire pacific ocean. These include the Mariana, Japan, Izu-Bonin, Peru-Chile, New Hebrides and Kermadec trenches.
Although yet to be published, the team examined 90 individual animals and found ingestion of plastics ranged from 50% in the New Hebrides Trench to 100% at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Some types of plastics were semi-synthetic cellulosic fibres that are commonly used in textiles, like Rayon, Lyocell and Ramie. Other plastics found included Nylon, polyethylene, polyamide, or unidentified polyvinyls resembling polyvinyl alcohol or polyvinylchloride - PVA and PVC.
Around 300 million tonnes of plastic have found their way into ocean and around 83% is floating on the surface. The remainder of this plastic falls and settles on the sea-floor in deep ocean habitats, where it can be quickly ingested. The crustaceans and other deep benthic species in this food-limited environment depend food sinking from above and will consume just about anything.
Once reaching the sea-floor the plastic has nowhere else to go and will eventually begin to accumulate. This is especially problematic as the deep ocean is an ecosystem we still know relatively little about. There is currently no baseline in which to experimentally compare.
For info on Dr. Jamieson's study please see the following site:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/news/2017/11/plasticocean/
