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This story is part of Planet or Plastic?-our multiyear effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste crisis. Learn what you can do to reduce your own single-use plastics, and take your pledge.

This story appears in the May 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine.

Not long ago I went snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean, a half mile off the southwest coast of Oahu. The flanks of the Hawaiian island are steep there, and the bottom quickly disappeared beneath us as we motored out to the site. Looking back, I could see the green slopes of the Waianae Range rising to 4,000 feet behind the beach. Normally the mountains shield the water here from the trade winds. But on that day a breeze created a light chop that nearly obscured what I had come to see: a thin, oily slick of surface water, rich in organic particles, in which newborn fish were feeding and struggling to survive their first precarious weeks.

Plunging my face into the sheen, I found myself looking inside a fish nursery: The water was dotted with life you would ordinarily never notice. Fish eggs drifted like tiny lanterns, their yolk sacs glowing in the sunlight. Fish larvae small as ladybugs darted about. A sergeant major damselfish the size of a dime appeared huge by comparison as it fluttered past. Below us, a school of 12-inch, bigeye scad-like mackerel but with enormous eyes-fed on everything that had the misfortune of being small.

My guides that day, oceanographer Jamison Gove and fish biologist Jonathan Whitney of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Honolulu, are nearly three years into a research project that aims to make sense of this chaotic scene. The larval stage is the "black box" of fisheries science: Fertilized eggs go in, and young fish come out-but what happens inside remains sketchy. The larval fish are so small and fragile they're exceedingly difficult to study. The overwhelming majority will never become adults. Yet fish populations around the world, and the animals that eat them, depend on just how many larval fish make it, and in what condition.

What Gove and Whitney have found lately-and what David Liittschwager 's photographs of their water samples document-is that fish and wholesome fish food are not the only things collecting in the slicks off Hawaii. Microplastics, tiny shreds of human trash, are there as well, and in such abundance that larval fish are eating them in their first days of life.

For newborn fish, to eat is to live another day; if their first meal is plastic, they're not consuming the calories they need to sustain them until the second. "They've beaten a lot of odds to get this far," Gove says. "They hatched, they found the slick, they're feeding and growing. This is one-tenth of one percent that made it this far; they're the lucky ones. And now plastics are coming in."

"The most critical moment is that first feeding," Whitney says. "If they get a piece of plastic, that could be it. A single thread in the stomach of a larval fish is potentially a killer."

Plastic waste, mostly from rivers or careless dumping on land, washes into the oceans at an average rate of about nine million tons a year, according to a 2015 study by Jenna Jambeck of the University of Georgia. The visible trash, along with heartbreaking images of its impact on everything from turtles to birds to whales, has generated a public outcry. But sunlight, wind, and waves eventually break down ocean plastic to bits that are barely visible. One of the biggest unknowns-and concerns-is the effect that these microplastics, smaller than a fifth of an inch, might be having on fish.

Fish provide critical protein to nearly three billion people and countless seabirds and other marine animals. But fish stocks worldwide have fallen by half since 1970, surveys show. Populations of the largest predatory fish, such as tuna, have fallen even more. The decline is largely because of overfishing, but pollution and waters warmed and acidified by climate change are having a growing impact.

As long ago as the early 1970s, scientists were finding plastic pellets-the material used to manufacture plastic goods-in the stomachs of fish caught off New England and Great Britain. More recent studies have documented the presence of even smaller microplastic particles in a growing array of adult fish. Larval fish have been studied much less but are likely to be more vulnerable to microplastics, as they are to everything else. "Any stressor will likely have more of an impact on early life stages than later life stages," says Susanne Brander, a toxicologist at Oregon State University who is studying how plastics might affect the growth of fish.

Most ocean fish are terrible parents. A few species guard their eggs on the seafloor; others protect them inside their mouths. But most fish release thousands or even millions of eggs and sperm into the wide ocean and never see their offspring. When eggs hatch a day or two later, they're on their own.

Newly hatched fish look misshapen, heads oversize, tails barely formed. They have to eat like crazy to grow into their body. Whereas human babies develop in the shelter of the uterus, fish mainly develop after they emerge into an unforgiving world.

"They hatch super early," Whitney says. "They have small brains; some fins aren't even formed. Their liver isn't fully developed. Or their hearing or seeing. They are only partially developed, but they are actively swimming, eating, fending for themselves."

Predators or starvation will get most of them. "That's why fish spawn so many eggs," says Su Sponaugle, an Oregon State University marine ecologist who specializes in the early life stages of fish. "They have to hedge their bets."

The larval phase is treacherous every step of the way-starting with the need for the larvae to find food, which they do in a surface slick. Surface slicks form mostly in coastal regions around the world, wherever currents, tides, or subsurface waves cause water to converge and concentrate the organic gunk that floats in it. Slicks can be seen by satellite as long, squiggly ribbons that run parallel to coasts.

Some larval fish swim to slicks, some drift, as do eggs not yet hatched. Predators converge on slicks too. If a baby fish manages to avoid being eaten and to find enough food, it will be about two inches long when it heads back to its permanent habitat-a reef, say. The right current will transport it there, the wrong one out to sea.

"If you miss an island, good luck with that. If there's no reef, you cannot complete your life cycle," Sponaugle says. Life for larval fish was a crapshoot even before they met our plastic trash.

Off Hawaii, a single eight-minute tow of the NOAA team's net yields a plethora of living organisms and plastic.

Pushed into a surface slick by converging currents, they're separated in the lab by a technician with tweezers. A computer program counts the plastic pieces and measures each one; the technician uses a microscope to identify the creatures.

Whitney and Gove came to ocean science and Hawaii by happenstance. Whitney, 37, grew up in New Jersey with a kid's plan to become a veterinarian. He arrived in Honolulu in 2006 as a volunteer for a census of humpback whales. In graduate school he worked his way down to the tiniest organisms of the sea.

Gove, 40, grew up in San Diego and learned to surf before he could read. A summer job with NOAA convinced him the ocean was more than a playground. After helping to cut 70 tons of abandoned fishing gear from Hawaiian coral reefs, Gove enrolled in graduate school to become an oceanographer. He specialized in how winds, tides, and waves affect ocean ecosystems and surface slicks in particular.

Slicks are transient-they break up in rough weather-which makes studying them a challenge. Gove and Whitney took me to see a slick off Oahu because it was close to their lab, but their main research site is on the west side of Hawaii, the Big Island, where two large volcanoes provide an even better wind shadow than Oahu's Waianae Range. The steep drop-off of the seafloor has proved to be a surprise bonus: The slicks attract an oceanic convention of not only reef fish but also fish from greater depths, including commercially important mahi-mahi, swordfish, and marlin.

"One of the coolest things we found was the diversity," Whitney says. "We've got deep-sea fish, mid-ocean fish, and reef fish, all interacting at the surface for the first few weeks of their lives. It was incredibly unique. I can't think of any other place on Earth where babies from different areas share nursery grounds."

He and Gove expected to find plastics in their slicks; the Hawaiian chain is in the drift pattern of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But they never intended to join the growing hunt for microplastics that has overtaken the work of so many marine scientists. Their focus was basic research on larval fish. Their samples contained such loads of plastic, however, that they had to revise their project.

The preliminary results indicate that slicks concentrate plastics even more than they do larval fish. In the water outside slicks, Whitney and Gove found nearly three times more larval fish than microplastics. Inside slicks, the situation was reversed: Microplastics outnumbered larval fish by more than seven to one. On average there was almost 130 times as much plastic inside slicks as outside.

"We didn't have any idea we would find such concentrations," Gove says. One of the first fish they dissected had plastic in its gut.

What harm such plastic is causing is still unsettled science. But in lab tests, some clues have emerged. Plastic reduces the appetites and growth rates of fish that consume it. That could affect reproduction and ultimately population size. "The larger a female fish is, the more eggs she can carry and the higher number of offspring she can produce," Brander says.

In their lab, Whitney and Gove oversaw the dissection of more than 650 larval fish, most of them between one-third of an inch to half an inch in length. They found plastic in 8.6 percent of the ones caught in slicks. That doesn't sound like much, and outside slicks the percentage was less than half that-but scientists know that small changes in the survival of larval fish can translate into large changes in fish populations, with cascading effects up the food chain.

The NOAA researchers found tiny blue strands of polyethylene and polypropylene, commonly used to make fishing gear, in the stomachs of larval swordfish, marlins, and five other species. The strands look a lot like the food that larval fish crave: tiny copepods, bluish crustaceans with long, skinny antennae.

In larval mahi-mahis, Whitney and Gove found no plastic. They're not sure why. Was it because eyesight develops earlier in mahi-​mahis, making them better than other species at distinguishing plastic from prey? Or was it because the mahi-mahis that ate plastic had died and escaped detection?

Flying fish appear to eat plastic especially frequently. Besides serving as prey for larger fish, including sharks, flying fish are primary prey for 95 percent of Hawaiian seabirds. Are birds ingesting plastic with their flying fish, and is that affecting them? For every question the researchers answer, Gove says, 10 new ones come up.

The smallest fish he and Whitney found with plastic in its stomach was just a quarter inch long, about six millimeters. But the plastic fibers the fish are eating are smaller.

"They are less than one millimeter, things you can barely see with the naked eye," Whitney says. That is "the shocking part: The pieces we can't even see are the problem."

In 2018 David Liittschwager photographed jellyfish for the October issue; staff writer Laura Parker wrote the June cover story on plastic trash.

The nonprofit National Geographic Society, working to conserve Earth's resources, helped fund this article.

The National Geographic Society and Sky Ocean Ventures have launched the Ocean Plastic Innovation Challenge, which asks problem solvers around the globe to develop novel solutions to tackle the world's plastic waste crisis. Have an idea? Submit your solution by June 11 at oceanplastic-challenge.org.

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Microplastic is leading to big problems for fish in the ocean

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Newborn fish are mistaking tiny bits of trash for food. If they die, there'll be fewer big fish-and that could rattle the food chain.

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Examples of primary microplastics include microbeads found in personal care products, plastic pellets (or nurdles) used in industrial manufacturing, and plastic fibres used in synthetic textiles (e.g., nylon).

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We dump the microplastics into the ocean, and plankton consume it, and other animals consume the plankton, and we then consume those animals.

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Micro-plastic are tiny pieces of plastic. It can be anything from tiny shards broken off larger objects to micro-beads developed for use in cosmetic products. It can also be from microfiber, which is tiny strands of plastic.

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Microplastics can travel through streams and wind up in ecosystems that are home to a variety of marine life, including algae, zooplankton, fish, crabs, sea turtles, and birds, once released or torn away from their initial plastic product.

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Once released or broken away from their original plastic product, microplastics can travel through waterways and end up in the ecosystems that serve as homes to a range of marine life, such as the sea. Planktons will eat those microplastics, where fish will consume the plankton, and later humans will consume the fish.

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Microplastic get dump down our drains. From there, micro-plastic a sewage treatmnet plant that filters the water. However, the micro-plastic are often too small and there would move to a nearby ocean.

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Find ONE more video that is relevant to microplastic and you can learn from it.
Find TWO articles/news on microplastics that will make you want to find out more about it.

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Shear and heat are generated in the tyre as a result of the contact between the tyre and the road surface; both of these processes result in the creation of wear particles. Shear forces cause a high number of tyre particles to be released. Heat builds up on the tyre's surface, causing hot spots that reach temperatures high enough to allow the volatile content to evaporate, resulting in the emission of relatively small, submicrometer particles. Shear forces and heat in the rubber cause road wear particles to cling to the rubber wear and tear in addition to tyre wear and tear. According to certain studies, the majority of tyre wear and tear is combined with road wear.

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Micro-plastics are small plastic pieces less than 5mm long which can be harmful to our ocean and aquatic life. eg. microbeads found in personal care products, plastic pellets used in industrial manufacturing and plastic fibres used in synthetic textiles.

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microplastics are tiny shreds of human trash such as plastics, and are smaller than 5mm in size. They can be harmful to our ecosystem when planktons or any other filter animals consume it as it enters the food chain.
Common sources of microplastics are microfibers, shards and microbeads.

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Microplastics: Where Do They Come From, And How Big Is The Problem? | TODAY

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Microplastics pose a growing concern in oceans and other aquatic habitat. Photo:
Sören Funk

Microplastics are everywhere.

"It's in our water, it's in the ocean, it's in the animals, in the air, even in space," Ana Zivanovic-Nenadovic, North Carolina Coastal Federation assistant director of policy, said recently during a virtual forum on microplastics.

Since the mass production of plastics began in the mid-20 th century, plastic has permeated our lives, she explained July 15 to the 202 from 29 different counties logged on for the North Carolina Coastal Microplastics Forum, organized by the federation.

The online forum included presentations from researchers, educators and environmental group representatives who explained the different types of microplastic pollution, the risks microplastics pose to the natural environment and human health, and current policies.

"This forum is the first step in our effort to inform the public and galvanize support for the change that will hopefully lead to solutions to microplastics," Zivanovic-Nenadovic said.

Bonnie Monteleone, ​executive director of the nonprofit Plastic Ocean Project Inc. and a plastic marine researcher, said she found in her research that around 3.86 metric tons of microplastics, or pieces measuring less than 5 millimeters, are in the North Atlantic.

The ocean is turning into "plastic soup," Monteleone said.

Plastic is the newest member of the food web "because plastics break up, not down. They're breaking up into smaller and smaller particles, making them more bioavailable for all the organisms in the ocean. So I like to call it the 'big small problem'," she said. "As the particles get smaller, we start to see less and less of them and scientists are really concerned to where these smaller particles are going."

Plastic debris breaks apart, not down, into microplastics, which are pieces 5 millimeters or smaller. Photo: NOAA

One place these microplastics are being found is in our seafood.

Dr. Susanne Brander, a member of the faculty at Oregon State University since 2017 and previously faculty at University of North Carolina Wilmington, explained that microplastics are transferred through food webs and then are ingested directly by organisms, "but they are also trophically transferred, meaning that they are ingested by smaller organisms that are then fed upon as prey items by forage fish or larger predators. The ultimate result is that these items can end up in seafood on our dinner plates."

According to an analysis, globally, about 26% of a fish species are found to ingest microplastics, which is roughly the same in the U.S. Microplastics affect the fish's ability to survive and to reproduce, and that can have population level impacts.

"So we should think about this from a human health perspective but also from a fish health perspective. And in the end, that's going to influence how many fish there are out there to catch."

Dr. Marielis Zambrano with North Carolina State University department of forest biomaterials said that these microplastics being found in the ocean - and in our seafood - are from synthetic textiles, tires, city dust, road markings, marine coatings, personal care products and plastic pellets, or nurdles.

Microplastics are synthetic solid particles that don't dissolve in water and are less than 5 mm in size. It's estimated that a minimum of 5.25 trillion plastic particles weighing 270,000 tons are floating in the world's oceans, she explained.

The average person ingests more than 5,800 particles a year of synthetic debris, found in everything including seafood, beer, tap water and sea salt. Microplastics are even found in human stool samples, meaning we are eating microplastics, Zambrano said.

Found in 99.7% of all samples taken from the ocean surface, microfibers are a primary source of microplastics. These microfibers get into the environment through the home laundry process. The effluent is processed in wastewater treatment plants but some of the particles are too small to filter out before being discharged. Microfibers are also in the air from carpet, clothing and other materials.

Dr. Marielis Zambrano with N.C. State University explains how microfibers get to the environment during her presentation.

Dr. Richard Venditti, the Elis-Signe Olsson professor in Paper Science and Engineering in the Forest Biomaterials Department at N.C. State University, said a study at the university found that cotton and rayon, both based on natural materials, degrade in about 35 days in lake water in a simulation.

"In stark contracts, polyester and many other plastics are completely inert to biological activity and persist in the lake water for a very long time," which is a challenge, he said.

The microfiber problem has no unique solution but there are some possible ways to help, such as filters on washing machines, a sustainable coating on fabrics, using natural or plant-based fibers, or new methods to spin fibers that are durable, though all of these are not without problems.

Haw Riverkeeper Emily Sutton reiterated that microplastics are a huge public health concern and noted the high percentage of microfibers they find while testing because wastewater treatment plants aren't able to remove all those before being discharged. Haw River, a tributary of Cape Fear River, is in the central part of the state.

Plastic, which is getting into our bodies through drinking water, has even been found in breast milk, she added. There's also concern about the chemical compounds these plastics are made of, as well as about PFAS and other chemicals. "Those compounds are also being soaked up by these plastic particles" that are making it into our bodies.

Dr. Scott Coffin, a research scientist at the California State Water Resources Control Board, said that while wastewater treatment plants are effective at removing microplastics - between 88 and 99% of plastics - what is removed is then turned into sludge.

The sludge, which contains a high level of nutrients, is often transformed into biosolids and used as fertilizer in agricultural fields across the country. For North Carolina, 25-50% of sludge is applied as biosolid to agriculture, according to a map Coffin included in his presentation. With the increase in plastic production, there's an increase in microplastic concentrations in biosolids, he said.

While it's known that plants can uptake and accumulate microplastics through their roots and be distributed through their shoots, it's unknown that plastic particles can make their way into the actual fruits and vegetables that we eat, Coffin explained. "However, we do know that with increasing plastic concentrations in soils, we see decreasing plant production of fruits and vegetables, with above a certain threshold, a complete inability of the plant to create tomatoes in this one study."

Biosolids are the sludge generated by the treatment of sewage at wastewater treatment plants, which produces biosolids for agricultural, landscape, and home use. Upper left, an activated sludge tank at a wastewater treatment plant, and a holding area for biosolids, lower right. The two photos are not from the same facility. Graphic: USGS

Coffin added that plastic does often contain hazardous chemicals, some of which are intentionally added.

There's at least 3,300 known chemical additives, 98 are hazardous, and 15 are endocrine disrupting. Bodies create estrogen naturally but when exposed to higher levels, it can cause things like diabetes, intellectual disabilities and cancer.

"Why do we care so much about endocrine disruptors? Exposure to just one class of endocrine disruptors of flame retardants results in more intellectual disabilities than pesticides, mercury and lead combined with an estimated 750,000 to 1.75 million total intellectual disabilities in the United States between 2001 and 2016," Coffin said. While the human health effects of microplastics are largely uncertain, he said, evidence is rapidly evolving.

Coffin said humans are exposed to microplastics through tap water. Researchers found in 2017 that 94% of samples in the United States had detectable levels of microplastics, prompting California to pass a bill for its Water Board to define microplastics and develop standardized testing.

When it comes to bottled and tap water, in general, higher concentrations are found in bottled water than tap water. "This is not surprising, as the bottle itself seems to be the source of these particles. Just unscrewing a lid from a plastic water bottle releases on the order of 14 to 2,400, plastic particles."

A recent study also found that polypropylene feeding bottles for infants releases about 16 million particles per liter. This results in the estimated daily exposure of 14,000 to 4.5 million particles per day to infants.

"This is just an exposure, and we don't know how much risk this could cause," he said, adding that looking across all exposure routes, air is likely the greatest exposure pathway, with a much higher concentration indoors than outdoors.

Microplastics don't go away once we're exposed to them. "It's estimated that we're walking around with between 525 and 9.3 million plastic particles. We know that these particles can be transferred to the next generation with four out of six placentas containing microplastics in a 2021 study."

Associate professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, Sarah Morath said in terms of plastic pollution, there are regulatory instruments like bans, such as the 2015 ban on microbeads in beauty products like body wash and toothpaste, economic instruments such as a tax or fee designed to encourage individuals and businesses to alter their behavior, and persuasive instruments, like an education campaign or Plastic Free July which where individuals voluntarily commit to eliminating their use of single-use plastics for a month.

Microbeads are a type of microplastic that were in personal care products like toothpaste before being banned in 2015. Photo: NOAA

Legislation that has been enacted or is currently being considered at the federal level includes the Save our Seas Act, which tend to get a lot of bipartisan report because they invoke nonregulatory methods, and Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act, reintroduced in March, with mechanisms to address plastic pollution, including putting the onus on the producer to collect and dispose of the product, Morath said. Other acts include the RECYCLE Act that focuses on improving residential recycling programs and RECOVER Act, focused on building recycling infrastructure, both introduced this year.

Zivanovic-Nenadovic told Coastal Review after the forum that this is the federation's first step in directly addressing the microplastics pollution.

"I hope that the audience was able to gain knowledge about the impacts, magnitude and ubiquity of microplastics. It took decades to get to the point we are in and it will take a determined effort to start to turn the clock back on this problem. We hope to have excited the audience and motivated it to help us as we go forward," she said. "The audience was able to learn about how pervasive the microplastics are in our environment. The presenters share information about microplastics in our food, in drinking water, elaborated on sampling methods and offered possible policy and regulatory solutions, and examples that exist in other states."

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Microplastics: The 'big little problem' plaguing oceans | Coastal Review

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Microplastics are everywhere. "It's in our water, it's in the ocean, it's in the animals, in the air, even in space," Ana Zivanovic-Nenadovic, North Carolina Coastal Federation assistant director of policy, said recently during a virtual forum on microplastics.

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This story is part of Planet or Plastic?-our multiyear effort to raise awareness about the global plastic waste crisis. Learn what you can do to reduce your own single-use plastics, and take your pledge.

Read this story and more in the June 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine.

In a laboratory at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, in Palisades, New York, Debra Lee Magadini positions a slide under a microscope and flicks on an ultraviolet light. Scrutinizing the liquefied digestive tract of a shrimp she bought at a fish market, she makes a tsk- ing sound. After examining every millimeter of the slide, she blurts, "This shrimp is fiber city!" Inside its gut, seven squiggles of plastic, dyed with Nile red stain, fluoresce.

All over the world, researchers like Magadini are staring through microscopes at tiny pieces of plastic-fibers, fragments, or microbeads-that have made their way into marine and freshwater species, both wild caught and farmed. Scientists have found microplastics in 114 aquatic species, and more than half of those end up on our dinner plates. Now they are trying to determine what that means for human health.

So far science lacks evidence that microplastics-pieces smaller than one-fifth of an inch-are affecting fish at the population level. Our food supply doesn't seem to be under threat-at least as far as we know. But enough research has been done now to show that the fish and shellfish we enjoy are suffering from the omnipresence of this plastic. Every year five million to 14 million tons flow into our oceans from coastal areas. Sunlight, wind, waves, and heat break down that material into smaller bits that look-to plankton, bivalves, fish, and even whales-a lot like food.

Experiments show that microplastics damage aquatic creatures, as well as turtles and birds: They block digestive tracts, diminish the urge to eat, and alter feeding behavior, all of which reduce growth and reproductive output. Their stomachs stuffed with plastic, some species starve and die.

In addition to mechanical effects, microplastics have chemical impacts, because free-floating pollutants that wash off the land and into our seas-such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and heavy metals-tend to adhere to their surfaces.

Chelsea Rochman, a professor of ecology at the University of Toronto, soaked ground-up polyethylene, which is used to make some types of plastic bags, in San Diego Bay for three months. She then offered this contaminated plastic, along with a laboratory diet, to Japanese medakas, small fish commonly used for research, for two months. The fish that had ingested the treated plastic suffered more liver damage than those that had consumed virgin plastic. (Fish with compromised livers are less able to metabolize drugs, pesticides, and other pollutants.) Another experiment demonstrated that oysters exposed to tiny pieces of polystyrene-the stuff of take-out food containers-produce fewer eggs and less motile sperm.

The list of freshwater and marine organisms that are harmed by plastics stretches to hundreds of species.

It's difficult to parse whether microplastics affect us as individual consumers of seafood, because we're steeped in this material-from the air we breathe to both the tap and bottled water we drink, the food we eat, and the clothing we wear. Moreover, plastic isn't one thing. It comes in many forms and contains a wide range of additives-pigments, ultraviolet stabilizers, water repellents, flame retardants, stiffeners such as bisphenol A (BPA), and softeners called phthalates-that can leach into their surroundings.

Some of these chemicals are considered endocrine disruptors-chemicals that interfere with normal hormone function, even contributing to weight gain. Flame retardants may interfere with brain development in fetuses and children; other compounds that cling to plastics can cause cancer or birth defects. A basic tenet of toxicology holds that the dose makes the poison, but many of these chemicals-BPA and its close relatives, for example-appear to impair lab animals at levels some governments consider safe for humans.

Studying the impacts of marine microplastics on human health is challenging because people can't be asked to eat plastics for experiments, because plastics and their additives act differently depending on physical and chemical contexts, and because their characteristics may change as creatures along the food chain consume, metabolize, or excrete them. We know virtually nothing about how food processing or cooking affects the toxicity of plastics in aquatic organisms or what level of contamination might hurt us.

The good news is that most microplastics studied by scientists seem to remain in the guts of fish and do not move into muscle tissue, which is what we eat. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, in a thick report on this subject, concludes that people likely consume only negligible amounts of microplastics-even those who eat a lot of mussels and oysters, which are eaten whole. The agency reminds us, also, that eating fish is good for us: It reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, and fish contain high levels of nutrients uncommon in other foods.

That said, scientists remain concerned about the human-health impacts of marine plastics because, again, they are ubiquitous and they eventually will degrade and fragment into nanoplastics, which measure less than 100 billionths of a meter-in other words, they are invisible. Alarmingly these tiny plastics can penetrate cells and move into tissues and organs. But because researchers lack analytical methods to identify nanoplastics in food, they don't have any data on their occurrence or absorption by humans.

And so the work continues. "We know that there are effects from plastics on animals at nearly all levels of biological organization," Rochman says. "We know enough to act to reduce plastic pollution from entering the oceans, lakes, and rivers." Nations can enact bans on certain types of plastic, focusing on those that are the most abundant and problematic. Chemical engineers can formulate polymers that biodegrade. Consumers can eschew single-use plastics. And industry and government can invest in infrastructure to capture and recycle these materials before they reach the water.

In a dusty basement a short distance from the lab where Magadini works, metal shelves hold jars containing roughly 10,000 preserved mummichogs and banded killifish, trapped over seven years in nearby marshes. Examining each fish for the presence of microplastics is a daunting task, but Magadini and her colleagues are keen to see how levels of exposure have changed over time. Others will painstakingly untangle how microbeads, fibers, and fragments affect these forage fish, the larger fish that consume them, and-ultimately-us.

"I think we'll know the answers in five to 10 years' time," Magadini says.

By then at least another 25 million tons of plastic will have flowed into our seas.

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We Know Plastic Is Harming Marine Life. What About Us?

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There often are tiny bits of plastic in the fish and shellfish we eat. Scientists are racing to figure out what that means for our health.

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Humans use items made out of plastic and these plastics get broken away creating micro-plastics which get dumped into our oceans/rivers ending up in the ecosystems.

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Ingested microplastics may harm animals, which may be damaging for marine organisms. Plus, when animals ingest the plastic, they are also ingesting those toxic chemicals. These substances begin to accumulate in their body and slowly make their way up the food chain. This damages marine animals health, and may cause them to die, thus polluting the sea with the bodies of these dead marine organisms

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Aquatic life can ingest these microplastics causing health problems such as severe interference to or an abrasion with their digestive tracks which can be fatal.

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Ingested micro-plastic particles can physically damage organs and leach hazardous chemicals. Eating micro-plastic can even cause death

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Microplastics are small pieces of plastics that are smaller than 5 milimeters. Some examples of microplastics include shards from larger plastics and synthetic fibers from clothes.

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Microplastics are small pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters, which can be harmful to our ecosystem as animals consume it. Examples : Tiny shards broken off larger items & microbeads developed for use in cosmetic products.

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Micro-plastics are very small plastic particles that are generally less than 5mm in size. Some examples of micro-plastics are polyethylene(PE), acrylic (AC) and polyester (PES).

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Plastic wastes that are carelessly dumped on Earth surfaces will get washed into the sea or even washing machines that do not have filters causes microfibers from our items to be flushed down the drains, into sewage treatment plants but are unable to get filtered, flowing into a marine habitat. Thus, when these microfibers enter the ecosystem, planktons or any other filter animals will consume them, affecting the food chain and causing the food humans consume to also contain microplastics which may be harmful to our body in access.

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Environmental health expert Leigh Shemitz and green chemist Paul Anastas walk us through a tiny problem with big environmental consequences.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiH3f6AKFbc&t=105s

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MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)

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Microplastics in the ocean: A deep dive on plastic pollution in Monterey Bay

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As we drive, abrasion causes bits of our tires to break off. Particles from the bits broken of makes its way into our waterways, thus allowing more microplastics to enter our ecosystems

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Microplastics cause damage to human cells in the laboratory at the levels known to be eaten by people via their food, a study has found.

The harm included cell death and allergic reactions and the research is the first to show this happens at levels relevant to human exposure. However, the health impact to the human body is uncertain because it is not known how long microplastics remain in the body before being excreted.

Microplastics pollution has contaminated the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People were already known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in.

The research analysed 17 previous studies which looked at the toxicological impacts of microplastics on human cell lines. The scientists compared the level of microplastics at which damage was caused to the cells with the levels consumed by people through contaminated drinking water, seafood and table salt.

They found specific types of harm - cell death, allergic response, and damage to cell walls - were caused by the levels of microplastics that people ingest.

"Harmful effects on cells are in many cases the initiating event for health effects," said Evangelos Danopoulos, of Hull York Medical School, UK, and who led the research published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. "We should be concerned. Right now, there isn't really a way to protect ourselves."

Future research could make it possible to identify the most contaminated foods and avoid them, he said, but the ultimate solution was to stop the loss of plastic waste: "Once the plastic is in the environment, we can't really get it out."

Research on the health impact of microplastics is ramping up quickly, Danopoulos said: "It is exploding and for good reason. We are exposed to these particles every day: we're eating them, we're inhaling them. And we don't really know how they react with our bodies once they are in."

The research also showed irregularly shaped microplastics caused more cell death than spherical ones. This is important for future studies as many microplastics bought for use in laboratory experiments are spherical, and therefore may not be representative of the particles humans ingest.

"This work helps inform where research should be looking to find real-world effects," said microplastics researcher Steve Allen. "It was interesting that shape was so important to toxicity, as it confirms what many plastic pollution researchers believed would be happening - that pristine spheres used in lab experiments may not be showing the real-world effects."

Danopoulos said the next step for researchers was to look at studies of microplastic harm in laboratory animals - experiments on human subjects would not be ethical. In March, a study showed tiny plastic particles in the lungs of pregnant rats pass rapidly into the hearts, brains and other organs of their foetuses.

In December, microplastics were revealed in the placentas of unborn babies, which the researchers said was "a matter of great concern". In October, scientists showed that babies fed formula milk in plastic bottles were swallowing millions of particles a day.

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Microplastics cause damage to human cells, study shows

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Microplastics cause damage to human cells in the laboratory at the levels known to be eaten by people via their food, a study has found. The harm included cell death and allergic reactions and the research is the first to show this happens at levels relevant to human exposure.

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Microplastics are plastics that are smaller than 5 millimetres in size. Some examples of microplastics include polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, microbeads and microfibres.

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Microplastics are consumed by small animals like plankton, then by smaller fish like newborn fish as they need to eat as much as they can to survive so they woiuld consume the plankton with the microplastics, then bigger fish consume the smaller fish with microplastics in them and humans consume the bigger fishes with microplastics

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Micro-plastics enter the ecosystem when we wash our clothes using a washing machine. The micro-plastics from our clothes go into the sewage treatment. The micro-plastics are too small and pass through the pores of the sewage treatment, entering the oceans.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHCgA-n5wRw

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Are Microplastics in Our Water Becoming a Macroproblem? | National Geographic

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Due to the high amount of microplastics in the water, there is a higher chance of consumption of the microplastics which may potentially cause harm to health causing the population of marine life to decrease drastically. Furthermore, when consumed by humans, they can damage the organs due to harmful chemicals.

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Humans use products which are made out of plastic, such as clothing. When the clothes are washed in the washing machine, microplastic pieces will be washed off from these pieces of clothing, and move through a sewage treatment plant. However, the filters inside are often too large to stop them from passing through and flowing to a discharge point at a nearby marine habitat. Once they reach the ocean, they will be consumed by plankton and other aquatic animals. It will then pass through the food chain and humans will end up consuming microplastic.

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01143-3

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/microplastics-in-virtually-every-crevice-on-earth

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Microplastics are everywhere - but are they harmful?

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Scientists are rushing to study the tiny plastic specks that are in marine animals - and in us. Scientists are rushing to study the tiny plastic specks that are in marine animals - and in us.

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Microplastics enter the ecosystem when we wash a synthetic piece of clothing and the microplastics used to make these clothing fall off. Since some washing machines do not have filters in them as they are expensive, these microplastics enter the sewage systems and into the oceans. The organisms in the ocean such as plankton and newborn fish would consume these microplastics and these microplastics will move up the food chain as other predators would prey on these organisms which have already consumed these microplastics.

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Aquatic creatures that consume microplastics may develop health problems and even death as they accumulate in their bodies. As microplastics cannot be digested, the creature may be weak due to not having sufficient nutrients and would be eaten up by bigger creatures up the food chain, and then by humans

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Micro-plastics causes respiratory irritation to humans, which could lead to serious health problems that may cause death.

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Microplastics contain toxic chemicals which may cause death. Some microplastics have carcinogenic properties and may cause cancer.

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The soles of shoes and tyres are made up of rubber. When there is friction between the shoes or tyres and the ground, microplastics would be rubbed off and released into the environment.

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Ingested microplastic particles can physically cause damage to organs and leach hazardous chemicals, killing millions of animals worldwide. They also pollute the waters, contributing to water pollution. Microplastic also contains toxic chemicals which could cause death.

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The soles of shoes and tyres are both made up of rubber. Friction acts on it when they come into contact with one another on the ground, releasing wear particles. These wear particles will be rubbed off and thus enters the environment.