50,000 Pieces Of Plastic Found In 200 Places

How much plastic is floating around the world? Researchers say that plastic can be found in the deepest parts of the ocean, in bottles, and inside people’s bodies. Nanoplastics in humans can cause heart and brain disease. As part of an ongoing search for the presence of plastic around the world, Environment America has just completed a project called its International Plastic Pellet Count Report. Those who conducted the event collected 49,256 plastic pellets across more than 200 sites spanning the globe in May. The majority of the collection was done by volunteers. 

The collection sites included 29 states and D.C. and 14 countries. The people who did the searching were looking for specifics. “Plastic pre-production pellets, commonly referred to as ‘nurdles’, are small cylindrical or spherical plastics typically less than 5 mm in size. They are the raw material used to make familiar plastic products like water bottles, grocery bags, and polystyrene foam takeout containers,” the report said.

10 Trillion Pieces Of Plastic

Somehow, the researchers extrapolated their data so that the possible count worldwide is much bigger. They said about 10 trillion plastic pellets are dumped into the oceans each year. 

The plastic found in the U.S was over a wide geography. They included the Charleston Historic District, the Tongass National Forest, Plattsburgh Bay,  Padre Island National Seashore,  Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

All the data support previous research. The widespread presence of plastics means two things. The first is that the effects on human health will get worse and grow geographically. The second is that the problem of the spread has no solution because it is nearly universal.

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