Oceans

The Raw Story reported on Thursday last week that a 4.5 ton sperm whale washed up on a beach in Spain last week dead and in an extremely emaciated state, and upon further examination, it was found to have died of eating plastic. According to the story written by the Agence France-Presse, the whale, which washed ashore last year, was found to to have ingested over 17 kilograms (which equates to 37 pounds) of garbage, which blocked its stomach and caused the animal to starve to death.

An article on the Guardian today shared photos from a recent deep sea exploration near the Cayman islands, in the Cayman Trough. The exploration via unmanned vehicle was meant to shed light on the mysteries of the often unseen ocean, but the photos from the mission have found something more upsetting than the anticipated beauty of the deep sea floor: litter. According to Jon Copley, one of the researchers behind the mission, images from the dive with the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Isis uncovered trash on the sea floor.

The Guardian reported last week that one third of the fish collected from the English Channel for study have been found to contain plastic contamination -- a figure which is uncomfortably high.The study was conducted by Plymouth University, and the findings were published in the journal the Marine Pollution Bulletin.

BBC Science Editor Susan Watts writes about the filming of a BBC series on the French Frigate Shoals, during which the film crew encountered the problem of plastic pollution firsthand. According to the article on the BBC, the crews encountered Albatross which had died due to plastic ingestion, turtles nesting in plastic bottles, and floating garbage that was discarded by its owners and remained forever after at sea. Watts comments that it is not just these problems that emerge from plastic pollution, however. Impacts of plastic can range from the very visible to the microscopic.

Plastic pollution has plagued the world's oceans alongside overfishing and acidification, but recent research has found that the problem of pollution in the world's oceans is magnified due to the way plastics absorb other pollutants, causing them to become even more dangerous and toxic to marine life. According to an article from Inhabitat, plastics were found to absorb persistent organic pollutants (POPs) over a long period of time -- in some cases, plastics continued to absorb new chemicals after 44 months. Morgana Matus reports:

A new report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency has found that the cost of cleanup programs for pollution on the west coast is equivalent to about a half a billion dollars. Terry of the Coastal Conservation Network reports that this costs each person living on the coast approximately $13 a year, solely to clean up human debris. The article continues to state that:

In an article from The Guardian's Observer yesterday, Lucy Siegle addresses the issue of small plastic fragments used in beauty products, namely exfoliators, and their impact on the ocean. According to Siegle, these microbeads, sometimes referred to as "Mermaid's Tears," are small pieces of plastic often found in facial scrubs. Cheaper than organic exfoliators such as coconut husk, these microbeads are washed down the drain after a single use.

In an article posted by Discovery News yesterday, contributor Emily Sohn writes that America's iconic Great Lakes have been found to be contaminated with bits of floating plastic. A new study has contributed to the ever-amassing body of research on marine pollution with the first real look at a freshwater ecosystem. The research was an effort to understand the way plastic effects other large bodies of water, and according to Sohn:

New scientific evidence suggests that the amount of plastic pollution lining the deep sea beds of the arctic has doubled in size over the past two years. According to an online publication in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, Dr Melanie Bergmann followed a "gut feeling" in response to noticing what seemed to be a larger volume of plastic in the deep sea photographs she was studying. The article from Phys.org reports:

Recently, a study has surfaced which declared that Scotland's maritime industries are suffering as a direct result of plastic's interference on marine ecosystems. In an article that emerged yesterday on The Hindu, India has also joined the countries vocal about the problems plastic pollution causes. A staff reporter from Kerala, India has stated that: