Featured Image Credit: phys.org
By Laura Lillycrop
In today’s world, “Out of sight, out of mind,” is a mentality that keeps people from fully understanding the consequences of their daily actions. When you’re busy hustling to and from work, going to your fancy gym, happy hour with your posse, and even picking up the kids from baseball practice, it can be hard to think about problems that do not directly revolve around you.
Yet.
Pollution is without a doubt one of the major concerns when talking about environmental protection. Unfortunately, the consequences of marine pollution and the thoughtless disposal of waste is a real threat to many and not just humans. Even animals at the deepest parts of our oceans cannot escape pollution’s reach. For the first time ever, evidence of deep-sea animals ingesting microplastics has been brought to the surface.
Microplastics are particles less than five millimeters in size that are broken down from larger plastic pieces (ex: the small beads in your tooth paste or exfoliating face wash). These plastics then enter our oceans through surface run-off, rivers and sewage outfalls. The growth in the amount of plastics produced by humans, combined with plastic’s slow rate of degradation, is leading to a boom of plastic debris found in marine environments.
These materials enter ocean food chains and pose a huge threat to the environment, and human health as we continue to consume these animals who consume these particles. Think of the simple food chain you learned in 4th grade science class: the human eats a big fish that ate a little fish, the little fish ate some zooplankton that ate some microbeads, and the microbeads came from your new whitening toothpaste that you spit down the sink. Got it?
A few of the creatures found to have been consuming microfibers includes deep-sea animals such as hermit crabs, squat lobsters and sea cucumbers. Researchers in the mid-Atlantic and southwest Indian Oceans collected the specimens using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV).
The European Research Council (ERC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded the study, which made this evidence possible. It was a collaboration between The University of Oxford, the University of Bristol, the Natural History Museum in London and Staffordshire University’s Department of Forensic and Crime Science. All of the participating organizations ensured that the results were sound and the research was free from contamination.
“Using forensic laboratory techniques, we have identified that microplastics are present in ingested material from deep-sea creatures. Forensic science is still a fairly new science, but we are delighted that our work and techniques are starting to inform other sciences and important environmental research such as this,” stated Dr Claire Gwinnett, Associate Professor in Forensic and Crime Science at Staffordshire University.
Targeting microplastics is now a worldwide concern. Removing the trillions of small pieces that have already entered our marine environments will be the next big focus in ocean conservation, as they continue to damage aquatic habitats. So, what is it going to take to force people to come face-to-face with our addiction to plastic before it’s too late?
Learn more about pesky plastics.