Scientists taking water samples from the entire length of Long Island Sound found that nearly every one contained microplastics, pieces of debris smaller than a pencil eraser. Evidence from several studies has found microplastics can cause outsize harm to marine ecosystems and to human health. Researchers from Staffordshire University in England, Central Wyoming College and the Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean, a nonprofit group, took samples every 3 miles in Long Island Sound, from New York City to Fishers Island, using a filter that captures particles as small as 6 micrometers, tinier than the diameter of a human hair.
The study , which began in 2016, was released early this year. They found very high concentrations of microplastics at the narrow western and eastern ends of the Sound, where there may be a bottleneck effect. But the microplastics were everywhere: Waters were contaminated near densely populated areas and along the less-developed East End.
There was no stretch of water untouched by petrochemical debris, which has been found by the tens or even hundreds of trillions in bodies of water across the globe, from the Arctic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea. Each year, about 11 million metric tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans, according to the Ocean Conservancy, nearly all of it originating on land. And these billions of plastic cast-offs — Styrofoam coolers, PET water bottles, nylon fishing ropes, polyethylene shopping bags — shed fragments as they are ba.
