I
recently read an article by Carlos M. Duarte named, “ Plastic Debris in the
Open Ocean”. This scholarly article reports on recent research regarding the prevalence
of plastics in the world’s oceans. This study was conducted by dragging a 1m by .5m net behind a boat at a speed of 2-3
knots a period of 10-15 min to collect any plastic (Duarte 10243). The team of
researchers repeated this process twice at every one of the 3,070 sites to
ensure validity. What they discovered was that 88% of the locations contained
plastic particles. While it is true that Duarte and the rest of the research
team were trying to discover the places where plastics were most prevalent,
they were more specifically trying to determine the size of the particles at
the sites. While plastics most commonly enter oceans as whole pieces, after
long periods of exposure to the sun and seawater they begin to degrade into
smaller and smaller pieces. The problem with this is that at a certain point
these pieces of plastic become small enough for fish and other marine life
organisms to ingest. During their research there was one piece of data in
particular that puzzled the researchers. They found a gap in the size of
plastic particles, which they quickly attributed to the fact that it was being
ingested by fish. This hypothesis was supported by further research showing
that, “[the] incidence of plastic in stomachs of epipelagic zooplankitvorous
fish ranges from 1 to 29%, and in the stomachs of small mesopelagic fish from 9
to 35%” (Duarte 10241).
While this article relates to many
sections in our class such as sustainability and the need to protect our
oceans, it also relates to biomagnification. This is the tendency for top
predators to contain higher concentrations of substances that originate at
lower trophic levels. This is why the incidence of plastics in the stomachs of
small fish is a problem for every organism in the food web, humans included. As
humans we consume fish so these plastics are also transferred to us. Due to the
health impacts that plastic pose to humans along with aquatic organisms, it is
important that we reduced the amount of plastic that enters our oceans.
Plastics enter bodies of water primarily through storm water runoff. So, one
simple way to positively impact our oceans is to simply recycle and reduce the amount
of litter that ends up in streets.
Bircher, Nina. Tear-drops of the Mermaid Land on Our Food-plates. 2013. N.p.
Duarte, Carlos M., and Andres Cozar Et Al. "Plastic Debris in the Open Ocean." Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences 111.28 (2014): 10239-0244. Siena College Interlibrary Loan Service. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
Good post. I really liked that you added the effects of ocean pollution on us. The image you chose was, also, an incredibly eye-opening picture. All around, good post.
ReplyDeleteI think that we should have regulations and policies for the companies and the people that are doing this. It reaches a point where humans are consuming waste and this is something that needs to be regulated more.
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ReplyDeleteI think the saying “you are what you eat” fits nicely here. If fish are ingesting all of these micro-plastic particles, then we must be as well. Adding the concept of biomagnification makes this even scarier when thinking about the health problems that could arise from ingesting all of this plastic.
ReplyDeleteWe often see the ocean as this never ending place. While it is vast each additional piece of plastic makes a difference. We need to be more strict with our regulation of pollution of our oceans. If fish become sick from eating the plastic it may effect the fishing industry, but by that point it may be to late.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that the absence of plastic in our ocean is considered alarming instead of encouraging. This is because with the absence comes the ingestion of plastic by the fish. We need to figure out a way to remove the plastic from the ocean so that the fish aren't the ones removing it and getting harmed by it.
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