On Hawaii's beaches, 91% of plastics were found buried in the sand

Global models  of ocean plastic pollution show that two-thirds of microplastics accumulate on beaches and coastlines. But what happens to them? This is the question asked by researchers from Ifremer, Hawaiʻi Pacific University, and The Ocean Cleanup as part of the international STORAGE project, two publications of which have just appeared in the journals Marine Pollution Bulletin and Microplastics and Nanoplastics. They sampled three beaches in Hawaii, located opposite the 7th continent, a vortex of waste covering approximately 1.6 million km² in the North Pacific Ocean. These researchers reveal that most of the plastic they found is buried in the sand and is at high risk of fragmenting into secondary microplastics less than 5 mm in diameter.

Read the full press release attached in pdf or on www.ifremer.fr/en/

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