Plastic outweighs plankton in the North Pacific.

• Author: Runyan, Curtis
• Position: Environmental Intelligence

Researchers from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation tracking marine debris in the North Pacific found that plastic flotsam was more abundant than zooplankton, the tiny (often microscopic), marine animals near the bottom of the ocean food chain. "For every 6 pounds of plastic that we got, there was only one pound of zooplankton," said Charles Moore, one of the authors of the study, which was published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin.

The researchers took 11 samples over 3 days in a high pressure convergence called the North Pacific central gyre, where the ocean current collects debris. While record concentrations were measured at the center of the gyre, "the alarming thing we found was that practically every place we sampled had these plastic fragments in it," said Moore. "No place was free of this plastic fragment pollution."

Each year in the North Pacific alone nearly 100,000 marine mammals are killed by ingesting or getting tangled in plastic debris, and a large number of bird species...