Bergmann and her colleagues counted pieces of plastic from an icebreaker, a boat designed to break through large chunks of ice in very cold waters. They also tracked plastic pieces they saw during helicopter rides over Arctic waters. The team found 31 pieces of plastic. “That doesn’t seem like much, but it shows us that we’ve really got a problem, one that extends even to this remote area, far from civilization,” Bergmann says. She and her colleagues described their findings October 21 in Polar Biology.
Another team has also been counting plastics in the area. Those scientists scooped water from the Barents Sea and counted the number of smaller bits of plastics, called microplastics. It’s the first time scientists have counted plastics floating in the Arctic waters, the team wrote October 8 in Scientific Reports.
Why scientists are concerned
Plastic in the ocean is dangerous to animals. Some may get tangled in rope or bags. And wildlife may swallow bags and other plastic bits. That makes them feel full. But some may eventually starve because they are not getting the nutrients they need to live.
Sometimes plastics also may break down in an animal’s body and release toxic chemicals. If another animal later eats the one that swallowed plastic, it too can end up with poisonous chemicals in its body. This, in turn, can travel up the food web, endangering predators — even people.
Van Sebille points to yet another concern. The new studies only looked at trash at or just below the surface of Arctic waters. There may be way more trash on the ocean bottom. “There are a lot of animals living in water that’s 10,000 feet deep or more and encountering plastics,” he notes. “We have no idea what that does to the food web.”
