A team of researchers led by environmental scientist Markus Eriksen revealed that about 270,000 of plastic trash can be found in oceans around the world, according to the Associated Press.
Many of these are small bits of plastic that were once part of everyday objects that people use. The study Eriksen and his team conducted was published in PLOS ONE, an online journal dedicated to featuring research reports about various fields of science.
The team conducted the research by using a mesh net to collect the floating pieces of plastic. Bigger pieces were then counted by researchers onboard a boat, Newsweek reported.
It took the team six years to gather data from Coastal Australia, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean Sea. The team surveyed these areas because these are the regions where trash from different parts of the world usually ends up.
Using a computer model, the researchers used the data they have gathered to come up with a calculated estimate to represent the amount of plastic trash floating in the world's oceans. The estimate includes areas that were not covered by the researchers.
Based on their findings, there are 5.25 trillion plastic pieces floating in the oceans, News Everyday has learned.
More importantly, over 90 percent of the floating trash is composed of tiny plastic pieces. Erikson noted that these plastic particles can harm marine animals when ingested.
"Plastic in the ocean is basically a hazardous waste, as it absorbs this plethora of persistent chemical wastes and delivers these toxins to these animals that unknowingly ingest them," he wrote in the study.
Aside from underwater animals, the huge number of floating plastic bits can also affect humans, according to Kara Lavander Law of Massachusetts' Sea Education Association. This will happen if a person eats a fish that has eaten another fish that was poisoned by the toxic chemicals from an ingested piece of plastic.
"We have very little knowledge of the chain of events that could lead to that," Lavander said. "But it's a plausible scenario that plastic ingested at lower levels of the food web could have consequences at higher levels of the food chain."
