Millions of tons of plastic waste found at the bottom of the ocean

(Patria) - Between three and 11 million tons of plastic waste have accumulated at the bottom of the world's oceans, according to a study published this month by Australian and Canadian researchers.

Remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) have made it possible to approximately quantify plastic waste that ends up on the seabed and to determine the locations where it accumulates before it breaks down into smaller pieces and mixes with sediment.

This was stated by Denise Hardesty, one of the authors of the report, which was prepared by the Australian scientific agency Csiro and the University of Toronto.

She points out that we know that millions of tons of plastic waste enter the oceans every year. However, what we don't know is actually how much of this pollution ends up on the ocean floor.

Although estimates of the amount of microplastics have been published before, the study "Plastics in the Deep Sea - A Global Assessment of Ocean Floor Accumulation" deals with larger items such as nets, cups, or plastic bags.

Given that the use of plastics is expected to double by 2040, understanding how and where waste moves in the ocean is crucial for protecting marine ecosystems and wildlife, scientists say.

- Plastic pollution on the seabed could be 100 times greater than the amount of plastic floating on the surface - said Alice Zhu, a doctoral student at the University of Toronto who led the research.

The ocean floor has therefore become a long-term repository for a large part of the plastic waste.

"This is further exacerbated by the extremely slow degradation rates of plastics in cold environments lacking oxygen and ultraviolet radiation," the research states.

According to the results, 46 percent of the estimated plastic mass is found at depths above 200 meters, and the rest extends down to 11,000 meters.