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Mystery of the Atlantic's missing plastic flotsam

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The amount of floating plastic trapped in a north Atlantic current system hasn't got any bigger in 22 years, despite more and more plastic being thrown away. Since 1986 students taking samples of plankton in the Atlantic and Caribbean Oceans have also noted when their nets caught plastic debris. Kara Lavender and colleagues at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, analysed the data, and found that of 6136 samples recorded, more than 60 per cent included pieces of plastic, typically just millimetres across. The areas of highest plastic concentration are within the north Atlantic subtropical gyre, where currents gather the debris.
Lavender and her team were surprised to find that the amount of floating plastic had not increased in the gyre. Although it has been illegal since the 1970s for ships to throw plastic overboard, Lavender thinks that the overall rate of plastic rubbish reaching the ocean will have increased, given the fivefold increase in global production of plastic since 1976.(...)

The article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19340-mystery-of-the-atlantics-missing-plastic-flotsam.html

Basic information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Trash_Vortex

Sull'argomento:

http://oggiscienza.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/e-la-plastica-bellezza/

http://ildemocratico.com/2010/12/01/pacific-trash-vortex-un-oceano-di-plastica/

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5th International Marine Debris Conference:

http://www.5imdc.org/

 
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