Atlantic garbage patch not increasing--study

Commenting on the issue of disposal of plastic in ocean and study results, study leader Kara Lavender Law from the Sea Education Association in Massachusetts, said in an interview, "We know that global production of plastics has increased substantially over the time period.”

Law added further that if plastic production has increased then the disposal rate must have increased too. "If there is more plastic trash it's hard to believe more is not making it into the ocean. There is missing plastic out there.”

The research study results on Atlantic garbage-patch appeared on Aug. 20 issue of online journal 'Science.' The study was funded by National Science Foundation.

Research study
Law along with her team that comprised of thousands of undergraduate students from the Sea Education Association (SEA), hand-picked, counted and analyzed over 64,000 pieces of plastic from 6,000 net tows from 1986 to 2008.

"We know that global production of plastics has increased substantially over the time period,” said study leader Kara Lavender Law.

Research team did find some substantial changes in the amount of plastic deposited in Atlantic Ocean but it does not point any significant change in plastic concentration in ocean over the years; making researchers wonder where the trash is going.

Apart from analyzing data, team also made annual trips to Atlantic trash field and collected samples by using plankton nets, which allowed them to skim and gather tiny pieces of material from the ocean’s surface.

Afterwards students with the help of tweezers separated the material gathered and analyzed it for further proof.

As per Law, one of the reasons for not finding enough plastic trash in ocean could be that “the plastic is breaking down into pieces smaller than what we capture in the net."

Plastic garbage dangerous to sea creatures
Commenting on the dangers plastic pose to the marine life, the U.S. based Sea Education Association (Sea), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Hawaii researchers said that the plastic is a "major contaminant” in sea.

"Plastic marine pollution is a significant environmental concern, yet a quantitative description of the scope of this problem is the open ocean is lacking," said agency’s representative in a press statement.

"Their chemically engineered durability and slow rate of biodegradation allow these synthetic polymers to withstand the ocean environment for years to decades or longer."

As per researchers, the plastic disposed in the sea can endanger lives of various creatures as they may eat it or get entangled in it.