'250 billion' plastic fragments in Mediterranean

[The Straight Story]

'250 billion' plastic fragments in Mediterranean

The estimate comes from French and Belgian marine biologists who analysed water samples taken in July off France, northern Italy and Spain to a depth of 10-15 centimetres (four to six inches).

"The rough estimate is that there are roughly 250 billion pieces of micro-debris in all the Mediterranean," said Francois Galgani, of the French Institute for Exploration of the Sea (Ifremer), said.

The figure derives from 4,371 minute pieces of plastic -- average weight 1.8 milligrams (0.00006 of an ounce) -- found in the samples, "which extrapolates to roughly 500 tonnes for the entire Mediterranean," Galgani said.

Ninety percent of the samples, taken by volunteers from Expedition MED (Mediterranean in Danger) on a 17-metre (55-feet) yacht, had such fragments.

The sampling only covered surface waters and is a preliminary evaluation. Further samples, off Gibraltar, Moroccow, Algeria, Tunisa, Sardinia and southern Italy, will be taken in 2011 to get a wider picture.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-billion-plastic-fragments-mediterranean.html

[tabatha]

1. That is going to kill us

unless someone does something serious about it - and that won't happen because there is no money to be made by cleaning it up.

Maybe Bill Gates should spend his money on that instead of promoting GMOs in Africa.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. It's a gyre of plastic.

The same things also exist on a much larger scale in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

We are killing our oceans with this crap.

[felix_numinous]

3. I wish someone

would invent robots to clean up toxic waste and pollution.