But plastic is getting into rivers all over the world. A new report offers a glimpse of the scale of microplastics building up on the ocean floor. The study found zero plastic particles in some deep-ocean sediment, but up to 13.6 particles per gram in others, a figure up to 25 times larger than what had been found in earlier deep-sea studies of microplastics. “It really points to the ubiquity of the problem. FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. — Plastic makes up a good chunk of pollution on land and in the oceans. The scientists said they made conservative estimates to take into account the full range of samples. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a gyre of refuse between California and Hawaii that is estimated to be more than twice the size of Texas, carries over 87,000 tons of trash. "These microplastics will ... eventually go down towards the estuary and then out into the open ocean.". ", Read: The man who fishes for plastic from a floating bicycle, You could be swallowing a credit card's weight in plastic every week, Read: It's not just the oceans - microplastic pollution is all around us, If you drink bottled water, you may double how many microplastic particles you ingest, study says, Read: How our trash is destroying paradise. In 2018 researchers found that, in terms of weight. Marine scientists, environmentalists and even people who stay abreast of the news know that the world’s oceans are accumulating an alarming amount of plastic pollutants. New research shows that the amount of fragments embedded in the sea floor is far more than the plastic floating on the ocean’s surface. Yet little is being done collectively to fix the problem. Microbes and mussel colonies growing on floating plastic often cause the entire mass to sink from the added weight. Using a robotic submarine, the scientists collected 51 deepwater samples of sand and sediment in the Great Australian Bight in 2017, hundreds of miles from the shore, and determined the global estimate based on the average number and size of the particles. Among the top 10 kinds of trash picked up during the 2017 International Coastal Cleanup were food wrappers, beverage bottles, grocery bags, straws, and take out containers, all made of plastic. That is far more than on the ocean’s surface, and it’s the equivalent of 18 to 24 shopping bags full of small plastic fragments for every foot of coastline on every continent except for Antarctica. More buoyant types of plastic do not sink by themselves and either wash up on beaches or end up in deepwater. “Most of what ends up in oceans are in people’s hand,” she said. They are also found in air particles and can be spread by wind. “You can make something 100% recyclable, but if you don’t have a recycling facility, it just ends up as trash.” "We're finding that we are having a real reduction in the amount of plastic bags that we found and the bottles that we found," says Luke Damerum, who works with the group. About half of the fibers are plastic, many entering the water network when clothes are machine washed. They can end up lining the foreshore in a thick carpet. How much plastic is there? While cities have banned plastic bags and straws, the use of disposable plastic packaging has surged amid the coronavirus pandemic as consumers grow more concerned about hygiene and contamination. How does it get there? Marine scientists, environmentalists and even people who stay abreast of the news know that the world’s oceans are accumulating an alarming amount of plastic pollutants. 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