"Plastic waste": "Littering Arctic seafloor"

                

This is a picture of a deep-sea organism tangled up in a plastic bag

When reading this article I felt extremely curious on what the seafloor actually looks like with all this litter on it. This article talks about how much litter there is on the seabed today compared to how much there was a decade ago. This article also talks about how much danger the litter on the seabed can cause the deep-sea organisms. Melanie Bergmann, “a biologist and deep-sea expert at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association” said that it was a “gut feeling” (Macroevolution, 2012) to start studying about the plastic waste at the bottom of the Arctic seafloor. When she was looking through these seafloor pictures taken near HAUSGARTEN, a AWI deep-sea observatory that is 2500 meters below the surface of the water, she had the impression that pictures from 2011 had more litter found on the seafloor than pictures taken in earlier years. When Bergmann had this theory she had to look at all of the photos taken from 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, and 2011. HAUSGARTEN takes a picture every 30 seconds; imagine how many pictures it takes in a year! The increase in litter is due to the ship traffic in the Arctic Sea. Since the Arctic Sea ice is always shrinking and getting thinner it is able now to get private yachts through. Bergmann says that they are “seeing 3 times the number of private yachts and up to 36 times more fishing vessels in the waters surrounding Spitsbergen compared to pre-2007 times”.

                This article did speak to my interests. Every trip to the beach this summer I am going to be extremely cautious in picking up my trash and recycling the things that can be recycled. I didn’t realize how deep our plastic can travel in the ocean. Next time I am on my boat and I see plastic floating by I am going to be sure to snag it and dispose of it properly. Before reading this article I didn’t know that plastic bags or other kinds of litter could be a danger to deep-sea organisms. Melanie Bergmann said “Almost 70 percent of plastic litter that we recorded had come into some kind of contact with deep-sea organisms.” Also their ability to breathe could be “impaired”. I learned litter on the ground is as bad as litter on the seabed because when you litter on earth it hurts our ecosystem. When litter is on the seabed it hurts the deep-sea organisms.

                Plastics bags always have chemical additives in them, therefore their toxic effects vary. Bergmann says that other studies discover that plastic bags that sink to the bottom of the ocean can “altar the gas exchange processes in this area. This sediment below then becomes a low oxygen zone, in which only few organisms survive.”

                Since Bergmann and her colleagues want to extend their research projects on “litter in the sea”.  They are concerned with microplastic particles which are “microscopically small plastic particles created when plastic waste breaks down into ever smaller fragments during the course of chemical and physical aging processes. In an aquatic environment, due to their size, microplastics pose a risk of being eaten by small shrimps, fish larvae and other organisms at the bottom of the food chain.” Bergmann is concerned that when microplastics make their way into marine animals they will eventually enter the “human food chain”. If you are reading Fast Food Nation like I am, this is like the cattle that are fed everything but grass. We can relate this to the fish we could be consuming.  Next time you are on the beach be sure to pick up any trash you might see and dispose of it properly. Remember even a small plastic Market Basket bag affects us all!

http://www.macroevolution.net/plastic-waste.html