Plastic particles from clothes polluting almost all Arctic seas

摘要

POLYESTER fibres make up nearly three-quarters of microplastic pollution in the Arctic and probably come from textile manufacturing and household laundry. We already knew microplastics were present in the Arctic, but new research shines a light on the source of these tiny fragments. Peter Ross at the University of British Columbia in Canada and his team examined seawater samples from 71 spots across the Arctic taken from 3 to 8 metres below the surface. Microplastics are pieces of plastic that are less than 5 millimetres in size. They were present in all samples except one, with a count of approximately 4-0 microplastic particles per cubic metre of seawater on average. Synthetic fibres made up 92 per cent of the microplastic pollution in these samples, and 73 per cent of this was polyester.