Humans are smearing the oceans with plastic, according to British scientists who sifted shorelines to find microscopic fragments of stockings, yoghurt pots, rope, shopping bags and bleach bottles everywhere they looked.
The spread of polymer waste has been reported before: researchers have surveyed beaches on completely uninhabited islands in the Antarctic and found plastic cups, polymer sandals and cordial bottles wherever they have looked.
But Richard Thompson and colleagues at the University of Plymouth, England, reported in the journal Science yesterday that they looked at apparently clean sand and mud on British beaches, in intertidal estuaries and even under 9m of water for evidence of invisible pollution.
"We found microscopic fragments almost from the first sample. Since then we have looked at more than 20 sites around the UK and this material has been present at all of them," he said. "We are finding just as much in remote parts as we are nearer the big centers."
They found that microscopic fragments of plastic had been ingested by barnacles -- which filter water for food -- and in lugworms that burrow in mud, and tiny crustaceans that feed on detritus. In plankton samples they found polymer fibres as small as 30 millionths of a meter.
Plastics wash up on beaches to be broken by waves. The team searched for nylon, polyester, acrylic and six other kinds of polymer with a clear chemical "signature."
They could not identify plastics produced more than 20 years ago, and they could not pick up evidence of particles smaller than 20 microns. But they have clear evidence that long after plastic bags, nylon ropes and Tupperware boxes have vanished, their constituent fragments remain. Nobody knows whether this material can get into the food chain: that is the next line of research.
VAGUE: The criteria of the amnesty remain unclear, but it would cover political violence from 1999 to today, and those convicted of murder or drug trafficking would not qualify Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners, including opposition leaders, journalists and human rights activists detained for political reasons. The measure had long been sought by the US-backed opposition. It is the latest concession Rodriguez has made since taking the reins of the country on Jan. 3 after the brazen seizure of then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Rodriguez told a gathering of justices, magistrates, ministers, military brass and other government leaders that the ruling party-controlled Venezuelan National Assembly would take up the bill with urgency. Rodriguez also announced the shutdown
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
Exiled Tibetans began a unique global election yesterday for a government representing a homeland many have never seen, as part of a democratic exercise voters say carries great weight. From red-robed Buddhist monks in the snowy Himalayas, to political exiles in megacities across South Asia, to refugees in Australia, Europe and North America, voting takes place in 27 countries — but not China. “Elections ... show that the struggle for Tibet’s freedom and independence continues from generation to generation,” said candidate Gyaltsen Chokye, 33, who is based in the Indian hill-town of Dharamsala, headquarters of the government-in-exile, the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA). It
A Virginia man having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair on Monday was found guilty of murdering his wife and another man that prosecutors say was lured to the house as a fall guy. Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service law enforcement officer, told police he came across Joseph Ryan attacking his wife, Christine Banfield, with a knife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. He shot Ryan and then Juliana Magalhaes, the au pair, shot him, too, but officials argued in court that the story was too good to be true, telling jurors that Brendan Banfield set
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