Solving the mystery of missing ocean plastic

摘要

Microplastics are in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. In rivers and on seafloors and at the bot- tom of the ocean, scientists are identifying the highest levels of microplastics ever recorded. A widely reported analysis of sediments pulled from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near Italy in May 2020, for example, found up to 1.9 million plastic pieces per square metre, and these findings are believed to be typical.