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The Arctic Ocean, considered to be the purest water, has now been polluted by hundreds of billions of pieces of plastic waste
Hundreds of billions of pieces of plastic waste are found floating in the Arctic Ocean which has been considered the purest water. These findings indicate that pollution on Earth has reached alarming levels.
In most Arctic waters, the number of pieces of plastic waste found is small, but researchers found two dead ends full of garbage in the Barents Sea and the Greenland Sea.
Plastic rubbish carried by ocean currents thousands of kilometers that eventually accumulated in the region. The oceans between Scotland and Iceland are identified as the "main gateway" of Atlantic plastic shipments to the Arctic.
In a study published in the journal Science Advanves, an international team of scientists led by Dr Andres Cozar of Candiz University described how they sailed across ice-free waters in the Arctic Circle and scavenged plastic waste.
From field observations, the researchers produced a tentative estimate of the total amount of plastic waste in the Arctic.
"The total floating plastic load in Arctic Oceanic ice waters is estimated to be between 100 to 1,200 tons, with an estimated 400 tonnes containing 300 billion plastic items," the researchers wrote.
The researchers also revealed that fragmentation and typology of plastic waste showed that such abundant plastic debris came from a remote source.
The most polluted areas in the northern and most eastern parts of the Barents Sea and Greenland even contain hundreds of thousands of pieces per square kilometer.
"Plastic waste between the Barents Sea and Greenland has far exceeded the recommended safe limit," the researchers wrote.
Route distribution of plastic pollutants ... Route distribution of plastic pollutants from the Atlantic to the North Pole. This study demonstrates that global scale of marine plastic pollution and global ocean circulation patterns play a role in the redistribution of these persistent pollutants.
The research team also explains, now other oceans around the world began to form a dead-end area for plastic waste. A large amount of this collected garbage is expected to sink to the seafloor.
These plastic garbage, in turn, will have an adverse impact on animals and humans. Sea birds and fish that often misunderstand plastic as food, face death threats because the plastic they swallow can not be digested and eventually accumulate in the gastrointestinal tract.
Meanwhile, the pieces of plastic are super small size, can enter into the bloodstream and even the meat of sea animals that we consume. Micro-sized plastics that accumulate in the body over time can pose a long-term health risk.
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