Microplastics found in ‘heavily contaminated’ Arctic ice algae, posing threat to food chains - UPI.com
Algae that grow under sea ice in the Arctic have been found to be "heavily contaminated" with microplastics, posing a threat to humans through the food chain, according to a new study from researchers in Germany.
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"The filamentous algae have a slimy, sticky texture, so it potentially collects microplastic from the atmospheric deposition on the sea, the seawater itself, from the surrounding ice and any other source that it passes," Deonie Allen, of the University of Canterbury and Birmingham University, who is part of the research team, said in a news release.
Fish, such as cod, dine on the algae and are in turn eaten by other animals including humans, passing along a "variety of plastics" including polyethylene, polyester, polypropylene, nylon and acrylic that have been detected throughout human bodies.
So, the fish eat the algae with plastic, and the fish are eaten by humans who also end up eating plastic.
"People in the Arctic are particularly dependent on the marine food web for their protein supply, for example through hunting or fishing," Melanie Bergmann, a biologist who led the study, said in a statement.
"This means that they are also exposed to the microplastics and chemicals contained in it. Microplastics have already been detected in human intestines, blood, veins, lungs, placenta and breast milk and can cause inflammatory reactions, but the overall consequences have hardly been researched so far."
The study said that clumps of dead algae also transport the microplastics "particularly quickly" into the deep sea, which explains "high microplastic concentrations in the sediment," another key finding of the new study.
"We have finally found a plausible explanation for why we always measure the largest amounts of microplastics in the area of the ice edge, even in deep-sea sediment," Bergmann said.
The researchers said in the release that, until now, scientists only knew that microplastics, which concentrate during the formation of sea ice, were released into the surrounding water when the sea ice melted.
"The speed at which the alga descends means that it falls almost in a straight line below the edge of the ice. Marine snow, on the other hand, is slower and gets pushed sideways by currents so sinks further away," Bergmann said.
"With the Melosira taking microplastics directly to the bottom, it helps explain why we measure higher microplastic numbers under the ice edge."
Bergmann added that research has shown that reducing the production of more plastic is the most effective way to reduce plastic pollution.
I knew that plastic pollution has been a growing problem, although I hadn't heard about such heavy concentrations in the Arctic.
George Carlin once quipped of the possibility that the entire reason for humanity to be on Earth was to make plastic.
It astounds me how much plastic we have all around us. If we have to ban plastic bags at the store, I can understand that, but there's just so much other plastic out there.