SAINT PAUL, Minn. (CN) — A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is mapping microplastics in the world’s oceans, and it’s taking submissions.
The tool, created by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information and plainly dubbed the NCEI Marine Microplastics product, uses data submitted from scientists around the world to aggregate and, once it’s been vetted, present it in digestible form. The result is a map which details the quantity of microplastics found on beaches, at the ocean’s surface or in sediment taken from the ocean floor, among other places.
Microplastics — any piece of plastic less than five millimeters in length — are all but ubiquitous in the modern world, as the map appears to confirm. Plastic microbeads became a common component of personal care products half a century ago, and a 2015 ban on their inclusion in those products left countless other sources unaddressed. Rubber products like tires and the soles of shoes shed microplastics, as do plastic bags, synthetic fabrics, cigarette butts and fishing nets. Wherever there are synthetic materials, it seems, runoff containing microplastics follows.
Once shed, those plastics can enter the soil or water through any number of pathways. They can linger in the environment for decades or centuries,and are increasingly making their way back to humans in their food.
“This is what you call bioaccumulation. It accumulates as it goes up through the food chain,” Ebenezer Nyadjro of NCEI said Tuesday at a water science conference hosted in Saint Paul by the American Geophysical Union. Fish, shrimp and other aquatic creatures, he said, are particularly vulnerable to consuming microplastics. They then pass them on to the creatures that eat them — including humans.
Over time, the animals at the top of the food chain, collect those plastics in their bodies, where they’re likely to stay. The impacts of microplastics on the human body, Nyadjro noted, are still being studied — but they’re not likely to be anything good.
“It’s definitely not something you want in your body,” he said.
Whatever their effects may prove to be, Nyadjro said, there’s value in compiling information on where microplastics can be found. “That way, we can go to it and say ‘wait a minute, we're having a lot of plastics from this area, what's going on there?’” he said.
“We don't have a lot of money to go around to solve all the problems, so we want to target the areas where we have the most of them," he added.
By way of example, he said, a hypothetical oyster farm could be warned if their beds were threatened by a microplastic critical mass. By the same token, major microplastic polluters could be confronted with evidence of that pollution.
“Once we compile it, everybody can go out there and see that this is out there," he said.
NOAA started its mapping project in 2020, and launched it to the public in 2021. It’s incorporated a number of data sets, and soon hopes to include a layer on its map for data on microplastics found in marine life. It’s collaborating with other agencies around the world, including Switzerland’s Oceaneye Association, and several foreign universities.
Those who contribute data, Nyadjro emphasized in his talk, retain all rights to it and are credited for their contributions to the mapping project. Once included, he said, it’s guaranteed to be publicly available for a minimum of 75 years.
“When you send data to us, you’re not losing your rights to it,” he said. While the agency has a rigorous method for vetting the data it receives, he said, citizen scientists and professionals alike are welcome to submit.
In addition to his call for more data, Nyadjro repeated a classic conservationist’s mantra: reduce, reuse, recycle.
“Let’s all do our little bit by controlling the amount of plastic that we use,” he said, pointing to reusable water bottles and grocery bags as small steps that make a big difference. “You may not see the impact of it; you may drop something, and it may affect your friend, or your cousin, or somebody else in a different state you may not know about ... And the plastic takes a long time to decompose, so when you drop it you can be sure it will stay for a very long time, and cause a lot of damage.”
A conference attendee, the Desert Research Institute’s Patrick Martens, spoke earlier Tuesday about the ubiquity of microplastics and the possibility, however remote, of a future without them. A transition toward more biodegradable polymers, he said, would help, but it’d be a big lift.
“I can see ways to minimize it, but I cannot see a way, really, out of it,” he said. “Just thinking about tires. It’s hard to get rid of them ... Particularly in the U.S., people rely on cars.”
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