Nearly 269,000 tons of plastic pollution may be floating in the worlds oceans, according to a study published December 10, 2014 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Marcus Eriksen from Five Gyres Institute and colleagues. Microplastic pollution is found in varying concentrations throughout the oceans, but estimates of the global abundance and weight of floating plastics, both micro and macroplastic, lack sufficient data to support them. To better estimate the total number of plastic particles and their weight floating in the worlds oceans, scientists from six countries contributed data from 24 expeditions collected over a six-year period from 2007-2013 across all five sub-tropical gyres, coastal1 Australia, Bay of Bengal, and the Mediterranean2 Sea. The data included information about microplastics collected using nets and large plastic debris3 from visual surveys, which were then used to calibrate4 an ocean model of plastic distribution.based on the data and model, the authors of the study estimate a minimum of 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing nearly 269,000 tons in the worlds oceans. Large plastics appear to be abundant near coastlines, degrading into microplastics in the 5 subtropical gyres, and that the smallest microplastics were present in more remote regions, such as the subpolar gyres, which the authors did not expect. The distribution of the smallest microplastics in remote regions of the ocean may suggest that gyres act as shredders of large plastic items into microplastics, after which they eject them across the ocean.Our findings show that the garbage patches in the middle of the five subtropical gyres are not the final resting places for the worlds floating plastic trash. The endgame for micro-plastic is interactions with entire ocean ecosplayystems, says Marcus Eriksen, PhD, Director of Research for the 5 Gyres Institute.
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1 coastal adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 参考例句： The ocean waves are slowly eating away the coastal rocks.大海的波浪慢慢地侵蚀着岸边的岩石。 This country will fortify the coastal areas.该国将加大沿海区域的防御。
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