Far from being just a figure of speech, the existence of microplastics spread throughout the ocean is unequivocal for specialists on the topic. A favorite of industry due to its flexibility, durability and low production costs, plastic’s virtues are crumbling not unlike a 500-milliliter bottle transforming into millions of fragments in the marine environment. Drifting at sea and subject to wind, ultraviolet rays and maritime currents, a small bottle thrown down on the beach will deteriorate over the years into particles measuring less than 5 millimeters (0.2 inches). These particles can become part of the food chain, contaminating algae, crustaceans, fish and, eventually, humans. Yet, studies on the consequences for the environment, sea life and human health, as well as the reach of the contamination, are still scarce. In Brazil, where more than 12 million tons of plastics are produced every year, making it the planet’s fourth-largest plastics producer, two important studies are in the laboratory analysis phase to map out regions, calculate the pollutant load, categorize the types of plastics and, finally, learn how the trash made it’s way to the Atlantic Ocean. The MICROMar project is coordinated by Professor Guilherme Malafaia of Goiano Federal Institute and involves researchers from numerus state and federal universities. For a year and a half, MICROMar collected sand and seawater samples from 1,212 beaches and 211 municipalities along 7,500 kilometers (4,660 miles) of the Brazilian coastline. The 10,000 samples currently under analysis will make MICROMar the largest diagnosis of plastic pollution ever carried…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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