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Articles on ocean garbage patches

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Plastic debris on a beach on Lanai, a sparsely populated Hawaiian island. Matthew Koller

Plastic trash in the ocean is a global problem, and the US is the top source – a new report urges action

An estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic waste enters the ocean each year – equivalent to dumping in a garbage truckload of it every minute. A new report calls on the US to help stem the deluge.
Many seabird species, including the blue petrel (Halobaena caerulea), consume plastic at sea because algae on the plastic produce an odor that resembles their food sources. J.J. Harrison

The oceans are full of plastic, but why do seabirds eat it?

Thousands of seabirds die every year from consuming plastic trash in the oceans. But why do they eat plastic? New research shows that it produces odors that help some species find prey.
Microplastics sample collected in a plankton net trawl in the North Pacific subtropical gyre from the SSV Robert C Seamans. Giora Proskurowski/Sea Education Association

Far more microplastics floating in oceans than thought

New method tallies microplastics in southern oceans, yielding a total that’s 37 times higher than previous estimates.
Rubbish strewn on beaches eventually ends up in one of the world’s giant ocean garbage patches. Vberger/Wikimedia Commons

Redrawing the map could reveal ocean garbage patch culprits

Most of us have littered at one time or another, and in the process we probably contributed to the enormous of amounts of plastic that enter the ocean every year, eventually ending up in one of the five…

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