Plastic Accumulation in the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre

作者：Kara Lavender Law, Skye Morét-Ferguson, Nikolai Maximenko, Giora Proskurowski, Emily E. Peacock, Jan Hafner, Christopher Michael Reddy · 发表于：Science · 年份：2010 · DOI：10.1126/science.1192321 · 被引用次数：1387 · 研究领域：Microplastics and Plastic Pollution、Recycling and Waste Management Techniques、Effects and risks of endocrine disrupting chemicals

Plastic marine pollution is a major environmental concern, yet a quantitative description of the scope of this problem in the open ocean is lacking. Here, we present a time series of plastic content at the surface of the western North Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea from 1986 to 2008. More than 60% of 6136 surface plankton net tows collected buoyant plastic pieces, typically millimeters in size. The highest concentration of plastic debris was observed in subtropical latitudes and associated with the observed large-scale convergence in surface currents predicted by Ekman dynamics. Despite a rapid increase in plastic production and disposal during this time period, no trend in plastic concentration was observed in the region of highest accumulation.