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Anonymous
>>81096 It used to be, but the oceans are a fast changing place, and the world's industrial sewer. I have been working on the effects of plastic in the marine environment for over a decade. In 2004 my group showed that waters around the north-east Atlantic had become contaminated by microscopic fragments of plastic or ‘microplastic’ and that the abundance of this material had increased significantly over the last 40 years (Science, vol 304, P. 838). These microplastic fragments some of which were smaller than the diameter of a human hair appear to have formed by the breakdown of everyday items such as plastic bags, bottles, rope and materials used in packaging. My group are at the forefront of research to establish the environmental consequences of this newly described form of debris (e.g. Environmental Science and Technology, 41: 7759-7764).
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