Microplastics in the sea

[GordMay]

What microplastics are doing to seabirds could tell us about their effect on humans.

Some researchers estimate that humans ingest tens of thousands of microplastic particles every year by breathing in indoor air and drinking out of plastic containers.

These plastic fragments are showing up in digestive systems, blood, breast milk, possibly even the brain.

So what are all those tiny plastic bits actually doing to our health? Scientists still aren't sure, although a new study [1] on seabirds, led by a team of international scientists, raises some questions about potential ripple effects on the gut that could apply to humans, too. [1]

The researchers found evidence that microplastics may have altered the gut microbiomes of two wild bird species — the northern fulmar, found in Canada’s North, and the Cory's shearwater, found around Portugal.

The plastic fragments were linked to an increased presence of infectious pathogens and antibiotic-resistant microbes, plus a lower presence of beneficial bacteria found in the intestines that can help protect against infections.

The complex relationship between a microbiome and its host is “essential to host nutrition, physiology, immune function, development and even behaviour, and many diseases have been associated with altered gut microbiomes,” the team wrote in their paper [1], published recently in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

The scientists' discovery of antibiotic-resistant microbes within the birds’ digestive systems is a concerning development, and just one example of how the growing problem of drug resistance could have dire consequences on global health.

The ongoing adaptation and evolution of harmful bacteria could leave humanity with fewer options to treat serious infections, making antimicrobial resistance a “huge threat” to health care,

More about ➥ https://subscriptions.cbc.ca/newslet...th/2023-05-25/

[1] “Current levels of microplastic pollution impact wild seabird gut microbiomes” ~ by Gloria Fackelmann et al

Abstract:
Microplastics contaminate environments worldwide and are ingested by numerous species, whose health is affected in multiple ways. A key dimension of health that may be affected is the gut microbiome, but these effects are relatively unexplored. Here, we investigated if microplastics are associated with changes in proventricular and cloacal microbiomes in two seabird species that chronically ingest microplastics: northern fulmars and Cory’s shearwaters. The amount of microplastics in the gut was significantly correlated with gut microbial diversity and composition: microplastics were associated with decreases in commensal microbiota and increases in (zoonotic) pathogens and antibiotic-resistant and plastic-degrading microbes. These results illustrate that environmentally relevant microplastic concentrations and mixtures are associated with changes in gut microbiomes in wild seabirds.

Full Paper Open Access ➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-02013-z

[GordMay]

Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC-2)

The second session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment (INC-2) will take place from 29 May to 2 June 2023 at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Headquarters in Paris, France. The meeting will be preceded by regional consultations on 28 May 2023, at the same venue.

PLENARIES & PRESS BRIEFINGS can be watched by the public (via YouTube). The below live stream information for Plenaries will be published daily.

Live Webcast
From Monday, 29 May 2023 (CEST time zone, GMT+2), check this LIVE CALENDAR daily for the latest updates, and all upcoming live streams and information will be continually reflected below.
Side Events will start 15 minutes after the morning Plenary ends.
➥ https://www.unep.org/events/conferen...tional/webcast


In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly adopted a landmark resolution [3], and initiated negotiations for a global plastics treaty, including in the marine environment, to end plastic pollution by 2024.
The resolution [3] establishes an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), tasked with preparing a legally binding treaty, that deals with the root causes of plastic pollution, not just the symptoms.
Critically, this includes measures considering the entire lifecycle of plastics, from its production, to product design, to waste management, enabling opportunities to design out waste before it is created as part of a thriving circular economy.
The first session of the INC (INC-1) took place at Punta del Este Convention and Exhibition Centre from 28 November to 2 December 2022.


***


The UN Environment Programme warns that, without policy interventions, the amount of plastic waste in the environment is projected to approximately double by 2030, from an estimated 19-23 million tons per year in 2016, to around 53 million tons per year. [1]
By 2040, the World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that the societal costs of projected plastic production could reach more than US$7.1 trillion. [2]


[1] “From Pollution to Solution: A global assessment of marine litter and plastic pollution”
➥ https://www.unep.org/resources/pollu...stic-pollution

[2] “PLASTICS: THE COSTS TO SOCIETY, THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE ECONOMY”
➥ https://media.wwf.no/assets/attachme...WWF-report.pdf

[3] “End plastic pollution: towards an international legally binding instrument”
➥ https://wedocs.unep.org/xmlui/bitstr...=1&isAllowed=y

[3b] “Nations commit to develop a legally binding agreement” ~ UN Press Release
➥ https://www.unep.org/news-and-storie...commit-develop

[GordMay]

Microplastics a growing problem in Great Lakes, Ontario AG says

Microplastics are appearing in the Great Lakes in a larger amount now than before, according to Bonnie Lysyk, Ontario's auditor general [1].

[1] “The State of the Environment in Ontario” ~ by Office of the Auditor General of Ontario (May 2023)
AG’s Report flags rise in ozone levels, air temperature, microplastics among other issues.

“...
Microplastics (Page 28)

Microplastics, [were] selected as representative [along with Phosphorus] of an emerging contaminant of concern in the Great
Lakes that merit additional study.

Microplastics are plastic particles less than five milli-
metres in size. They originate from a wide variety of
sources, including plastic fibres from synthetic clothes,
the breakdown of larger plastic particles, films and
foams, and from microbeads in personal-care products.
They enter streams, rivers and lakes and eventually
accumulate at the bottom of waterbodies, along with
other sediments. They are slow to degrade in water,
which makes them a very long-lasting pollutant.

Microplastics can carry toxins that are ingested
by birds and fish, potentially causing intestinal and
other damage. Microplastics have been observed in
the gastrointestinal tracts of most Great Lakes fish and
birds that have been sampled.

Of the five Great Lakes, microplastics have been
found to be concentrated most heavily in Lake
Ontario—based on the number of particles found per
square kilometre in the surface water—and to a lesser
extent Lake Erie. This is not surprising given the higher
level of urbanization, and therefore potential sources of
microplastics to enter these lakes.

There are no long-term studies of microplastic
levels in the Great Lakes using consistent methods
of measurement, so trends over time are difficult to
identify. Nevertheless, analysis of the lake-bottom sedi-
ments provides an indication of changes over time. For
example, a 2015 study found that microplastics only
started to accumulate in sediments in the offshore
region of Lake Ontario within the last 40 years.

In central Lake Ontario, microplastic levels in sedi-
ments were measured to be approximately 4.7 billion
particles per square kilometre, a concentration more
than twenty thousand times greater than the average
abundance of microplastics per square kilometre in the
surface waters. This enormous difference between the con-
centrations of microplastics in the water and lake-bottom
sediments indicates that microplastics settle rapidly.
...”

Report ➥ https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content...ronment_EN.pdf

[GordMay]

“Human health depends on thriving oceans” ~ by Aaron P Jenkins et al [The Lancet, June 07, 2023]

Healthy oceans, from coastal waters to remote high seas and deep seabed areas, are integral to human health, wellbeing, and survival. Covering over 71% of the Earth's surface, the oceans serve as an essential carbon sink.
Oceans also regulate climate-associated human health risks between land and sea, ranging from direct injuries and deaths associated with extreme weather events, to negative effects on food and nutrition security, and even chronic diseases (eg, cancer) from ocean pollution ...”

Log in to access the full article, or register for free if you do not yet have a username and password ➥ https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...162-5/fulltext

[boatman61]

It's amazing that 'Experts' are now recognising what should have been intuitive knowledge.. science is a wondrous thing is it not..

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by boatman61

It's amazing that 'Experts' are now recognising what should have been intuitive knowledge.. science is a wondrous thing is it not.

Science is a wondrous thing!

Nature does not always obey “common sense”; which, as we all know, is not all that common.

Ie: The “Mpemba effect” describes how hot water can, sometimes, freeze faster than cold water. Who'd-a-thunk?
➥ https://phys.org/news/2010-03-mpemba...ster-cold.html

[GordMay]

How Plastics Are Poisoning Us
They both release and attract toxic chemicals, and appear everywhere from human placentas to chasms thirty-six thousand feet beneath the sea.
➥ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2...=pocket-newtab

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Science is a wondrous thing!

Nature does not always obey “common sense”; which, as we all know, is not all that common.

Ie: The “Mpemba effect” describes how hot water can, sometimes, freeze faster than cold water. Who'd-a-thunk?
➥ https://phys.org/news/2010-03-mpemba...ster-cold.html

Nothing natural about plastic.. and common sense knew plastic is not biodegradable but we still churn the stuff out.
As for boiling water.. common sense says the deoxygenation means there's less bulk to freeze and steam reduces it further.

[Franziska]

On a side note, I always juckle when folks buy fleur du sel or sea salt instead of stone salt.
Seasalt contains all of today's pollution.

Stone salt contains at the max some Dino piss [emoji846]

Equally amusing to read a best before on a salt container in the supermarket, it's millions of years old, but then again...

[emoji23][emoji1787]

Sent from my MHA-L29 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by boatman61

... As for boiling water.. common sense says the deoxygenation means there's less bulk to freeze and steam reduces it further.

That's one, probably inaccurate, hypothesis [scientific explanation, not common sense]. There are more scientifically plausible explanations.
Many scientists opine that the effect doesn't actually occur, in a rigorously controlled experiment.
BTW: The “Mpemba effect” doesn't describe "boiling" water.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GordMay

That's one, probably inaccurate, hypothesis [scientific explanation, not common sense]. There are more scientifically plausible explanations.
Many scientists opine that the effect doesn't actually occur, in a rigorously controlled experiment.
BTW: The “Mpemba effect” doesn't describe "boiling" water.

Did not look up the Mpemba Effect, just said something of the top of my head..
Denser things heat and cool quicker than more liquid things that's why there's sea breezes in the day and off shore breezes at night.

[boatman61]

An illustration from a search on Mpemba Effect..

[GordMay]

A more representative illustration, from the namesake's original paper, where the "hot" water was originally at 93C.
Mpemba and Osborne’s 1969 paper, in Physics Education presented evidence that hot water freezes faster than cold water.
➥ https://raffrag.files.wordpress.com/...borne-1969.pdf

You might, also, wish to look up the definitions of "Density", and "state [or phase] of matter" [ie: liquid], prior to mixing them in sentences.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by GordMay

A more representative illustration, from the namesake's original paper, where the "hot" water was originally at 93C.
Mpemba and Osborne’s 1969 paper, in Physics Education presented evidence that hot water freezes faster than cold water.
➥ https://raffrag.files.wordpress.com/...borne-1969.pdf

You might, also, wish to look up the definitions of "Density", and "state [or phase] of matter" [ie: liquid], prior to mixing them in sentences.

Hey.. I'm a dinosaur, and happy about it.
My thoughts come from my head not copy and paste..

[GordMay]

Boatie contributed an interesting post, in: ‘Ocean surface temperatures at all time high’

Originally Posted by boatman61

Well the estimated 14 million tons already lying on the ocean floor won't help much either..
Research conducted in the Great Australian Bight..
Using careful microscope images, the CSIRO team counted the number of microplastic particles in different samples from around 1600 to 3000 metres and estimated based on the counts from this region that 14 million tons of microplastic exist on the whole ocean floor. Previous comparable studies found higher microplastic estimates because they were conducted in coastal areas with higher population densities. This resulted in more pollution or contamination of the samples collected, and therefore was not representative of the majority of the ocean. Because this team’s microplastic count was collected from a more remote location, their total count was lower and provides a more conservative estimate.

“We estimate there are up to 14 million tonnes of microplastics on the seafloor. It’s worse than we thought” ~ by Britta Denise Hardesty et al
- This is up to 35 times more than the estimated weight of plastic pollution on the ocean’s surface.
- Between 4-8 million tonnes of plastic are thought to enter the sea each and every year.
- The number of microplastic fragments on the seafloor was generally higher in areas where there was also more floating rubbish.
More about ➥ https://blog.csiro.au/14-million-ton...microplastics/

The ORIGINAL RESEARCH article, ‘Frontiers in Marine Science’, 05 October 2020:
“Microplastic Pollution in Deep-Sea Sediments From the Great Australian Bight” ~ by Justine Barrett, Dr Denise Hardesty, et al

”... In spite of claims that the seabed floor is a major “sink” (Woodall et al., 2014; Koelmans et al., 2017; Chiba et al., 2018) our results suggest that while MPs were numerous (14 million tonnes), sediments account for but a minuscule proportion of the ocean’s “missing plastic”, (Thompson et al., 2004).”

Here ➥ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...20.576170/full

Supplementary Material ➥ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...ntary-material