Marine Microplastics
Microplastics research needs innovation, health focus
“Studying microplastics is hard because [they are] not a single contaminant like lead or a uniform contaminant like PCBs [polychlorinated biphenyls],” said NIEHS grantee Mark Hahn, Ph.D., a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “It is a diverse and complex mixture of materials.”
How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades
The threat to human health is complex and poorly understood. “There are a lot more questions than answers at this point,” says Mark Hahn, a toxicologist at WHOI who studies microplastics.
The sun can help break down ocean plastic, but there’s a catch
A recent studyfound that when four different types of post-consumer microplastics collected from the waters of the North Pacific Gyre were placed under a solar simulator, they dissolved into organic carbon.
In the sea, not all plastic lasts forever
A major component of ocean pollution is less devastating and more manageable than usually portrayed.
Study: Styrofoam Might Last Only Decades, Not Millennia, in the Ocean
Researchers from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution say that sunlight can break down polystyrene within a few decades.
In the Sea, Not All Plastic Lasts Forever
Polystyrene, a common ocean pollutant, decomposes in sunlight much faster than thought, a new study finds.
Microplastics Found In The Ocean And In Human Poop
Where are the sources of these microplastics? Well, as a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution video explains, some of the microplastics may be coming from larger plastic objects such as bottles and other households goods being ground up by the elements.
