Plastic waste also discovered in Arctic waters

Plastic waste now also reaches the water surface of the Arctic
The seas are getting dirtier. Researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) have now been able to show for the first time that even in arctic waters plastic waste floats on the water surface. However, as the AWI says, it is still unclear how the waste could reach so far north. But for the sea creatures living there, the garbage is likely to be problematic, because remnants of it are already for example. found in the stomachs of seabirds.
Researchers use study expedition for garbage counting
Plastic garbage apparently reaches the remotest regions in the sea and is becoming an ever greater problem in the Arctic. This resulted in one of the first refuse counts north of the Arctic Circle, which was carried out by a research team from the AWI and the Belgian Laboratory for Polar Ecology. As the scientists in an article in the online portal of the journal "Polar Biology" http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00300-015-1795-8
The team used an expedition into the sea area between Greenland and Spitsbergen (Framstraße) to search for parts of the garbage on the water surface.

Plastic garbage in the seas. Picture: kranidi - fotolia

Number is in all likelihood an understatement
"Altogether we discovered 31 garbage pieces", so the AWI biologist Dr. med. Melanie Bergmann according to the announcement of the institute. Although this number sounds small at first, it shows that garbage is found on the water surface in the distant Arctic. In addition, the counts were made from a relatively large amount, so that primarily large flotsam was detected. "Our numbers are therefore probably an understatement of the actual waste inventory," adds Bergmann.

Problematic is the plastic waste in the Arctic, especially for seabirds such as the fulmar, which picks its prey from the water surface. According to recent studies from the Isfjord on Spitsbergen showed that 88 percent of the animals examined had swallowed plastic parts. In addition, even in the stomachs of up to eight percent of caught Greenland sharks plastic waste was found, the AWI said. (No)