01 Jun 2020
Once in the marine environment, tracing microplastics back to their source presents many difficulties. The approach taken in this study by the University of Plymouth was to quantify both tyre particles and synthetic fibres as they enter the marine environment. Three points of entry were considered; release from treated wastewater effluent, direct release from storm […]
24 May 2020
Scientists trawled waters off the coasts of the UK and US and found many more particles using nets with a fine mesh size than when using coarser ones usually used to filter microplastics. The addition of these smaller particles to global estimates of surface microplastics increases the range from between 5tn and 50tn particles to […]
05 May 2020
Microplastics hot spots found in greater quantities than ever before on seabed Currents act as conveyor belts that concentrate microplastics in hotspots, study suggests Dr Ian Kane, of the University of Manchester, was lead author of the study published in the journal Science. Guardian ‘Scientists have discovered microplastics in greater quantities than ever before on the seabed, and […]
08 Oct 2019
South West Water is the latest victim of a giant fatberg blocking its sewers. Longer than six back-to-back double-decker buses at 64 metres in length, it is the biggest discovered in our service history and thought to be one of the largest found so close to the sea. It is formed from everything that has […]
27 Aug 2019
Guardian ‘Microplastics are increasingly found in drinking water, but there is no evidence so far that this poses a risk to humans, according to a new assessment by the World Health Organization. However, the United Nations body warned against complacency because more research is needed to fully understand how plastic spreads into the environment and works its […]
23 Apr 2019
Since 1957, the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) has been towed over 6.5 million nautical miles in the North Atlantic and adjacent seas. The operators have also kept records track of entanglements that disrupted their work: what snared the equipment, where it happened and when. This has proved a valuable source of data on plastic waste, […]
13 Feb 2019
Lauren Mattingley Science Officer Salmon & Trout Conservation ‘Whichever way you look at it, our rivers and coastal waters are inextricably linked. A plastic bottle casually tossed away in the middle of the country, blown on the breeze into a river tributary will make its way, over time to open water, by which time it’ll […]
10 Dec 2018
A team of pioneering researchers including Professor Richard Thompson OBE, Head of the University of Plymouth’s International Marine Litter Research Unit, has won two prestigious awards for the impact of work highlighting the presence, and potential impacts, of microplastics in our oceans and the marine life they contain. Along with colleagues from the University of Exeter […]
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