Monday, February 18, 2013

marine litter

Surely, palaeontologists of the distant future will label our slice of geological time the plastocene, as a layer of plastic waste will be our signature remnant. Plastic pollution already affects the oceans to an extent that scientists aren't sure what if anything can be done about it, and whether or not particles of crumbling plastic are entering the food chain and may end up on our dinner plates.

I summed up the sorry state of this situation in a feature which is out in today's issue of Current Biology.

It is freely accessible in

HTML and

PDF format

(at least for now, while the issue is current).

Marine litter.  Closeup of colourful plastics on the shoreline

Photo by Bo Eide, via Flickr

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PS Bo Eide was also involved in making this lovely video on the problem of marine litter.

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