Plastic soup

More and more plastic waste is floating in our oceans and seas.

This comes from waste which we throw away on the street, fish nets that are left behind, but also by washing synthetic clothing or by brushing your teeth. All these different types of plastic together form the plastic soup in the seas and oceans.

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Due to weathering, sunlight and waves, large plastic falls apart into small pieces. This leads to serious contamination. In 1997, Captain Charles Moore sailed from Hawaii to Southern California through the North Pacific Gyre, a normally unusual route. There, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, he saw pieces of plastic floating by. Later he returned to the area to do further research. It turned out to be a significantly higher concentration of plastic than elsewhere in the ocean. That plastic turned out not only to float, but also to float in the water column. Moore called the phenomenon the 'plastic soup', the term that is now in use throughout the world.

The oceans cover 72% of the Earth's surface and are our primary oxygen suppliers. The ocean is the main source of food for more than half of the world's population. But because plastic does not dig along the biological path, the plastic soup is deadly for many sea creatures.

Plastic soup becomes poisonous and penetrates our food chain

Due to the degradation and fragmentation of plastics into small particles, toxic substances from the plastics can also be released. All kinds of animals living in or from the sea and even the small zooplankton see plastic waste and microplastics for food. This often causes the toxic waste to enter our food chain. Plastic particles on the way to the sea also absorb all kinds of toxic substances from sewers and polluted areas through which they become, as it were, a kind of toxic bombs. These substances are released into the body of the organism that eats the plastic.

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The plastic contamination of the seawater could also seriously damage our health. The vast majority of this pollution comes from the country. No less than 80% of all plastic waste in oceans is discharged by industry and by people on land and ends up in the sea via rivers, canals and harbors. In addition, ships, the fishing industry and the off-shore industry are major contributors to pollution, but compared to the country's share this is 'only' 20%.

Some of the plastic that we use ends up in the oceans. What happens to that plastic and where is it? Plastic is found on all beaches in the world. Microplastics have been found to a depth of up to 5000 meters and plastic bottles have been spotted at depths of 3500 meters. In fact, the platic 'rains' in the oceans. Scientists have not yet properly mapped the plastic pollution of oceans.

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Gyres

The oceans are constantly in motion as a result of the rotation of the earth and prevailing wind directions. There are five large rotating sea currents called gyres. It is a kind of giant whirlpools in which the floating dirt is sucked slowly to the center, similar to a shower drain.

There are five major gyres: the North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian Ocean, North Altantic and the South Atlantic Gyre. These are located in subtropical zones, ie above and below the equator. In all five there is an increased concentration of plastic waste compared to other parts of the oceans. For example, 20,328 pieces of plastic per square kilometer are reported for the North Atlantic Gyre. In the North Pacific Gyre, this number rises to 334,271 pieces per square kilometer. The vast majority, however, concerns particles that we can hardly see with the naked eye because they are smaller than 5 mm; the microplastics.

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The gyres are not floating islands or carpets of plastic, also called garbage patches. There is no question of a visible floating accumulated mass of plastic waste. It is also a myth that the garbage patches from space could be seen. Such misunderstandings lead a persistent existence. It is, however, an increased concentration of plastic that consists in part of very small pieces. This concentration is expressed in the number of pieces of floating plastic per cubic meter or the number of floating plastic per square kilometer.

Hotspots

Are the concentrations of plastic waste highest in the gyres? That does not have to be the case. There are other places where the concentration of plastic soup is large or larger. These spots are called hotspots. Plastic is concentrated here, but not as a result of circulating sea currents.

The Mediterranean Sea is such a hotspot. On the one hand there is permanent supply of plastic from rivers that flow into the Mediterranean and from coastal cities. On the other hand, the connection with the Atlantic Ocean (Strait of Gibraltar) is so narrow that there is little plastic escaping into the Atlantic. In other words, plastic that ends up in the Mediterranean once will also stay there. For the Mediterranean, an average of 116,000 pieces of plastic per square kilometer have been reported.

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Hotspots are places where, for one reason or another, plastic concentrations occur. Apart from inland seas such as the Mediterranean (also think of the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea) there are:

Bays with large cities;
Bays where plastic floats and stays on;
Places where rivers flow into the sea;
Industrial centers situated on coasts;
Places or islands where different ocean currents come together.

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Source; plasticsoupfoundation.org