{"id":19133,"date":"2012-05-21T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=19133"},"modified":"2012-05-20T08:16:44","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T07:16:44","slug":"plastic-in-great-pacific-garbage-patch-has-increased-100-fold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/05\/plastic-in-great-pacific-garbage-patch-has-increased-100-fold\/","title":{"rendered":"Plastic in &#8216;Great Pacific Garbage Patch&#8217; Has Increased 100-Fold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Plastic garbage in the ocean has increased 100-fold in the past 40 years and could have ecosystem-wide impacts, according to a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org\/content\/early\/2012\/04\/26\/rsbl.2012.0298.full\" >study<\/a> released Tuesday [8 May 2012].<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography looked at the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre (NPSG), known as the \u2018Great Pacific Garbage Patch,\u2019 and found an &#8220;alarming amount&#8221; of plastic trash, much in small bits.<\/p>\n<p>The plastic trash was leading to an increase in &#8220;sea skaters,&#8221; a marine insect, eggs because the insects were using the increased plastic floating matter as to lay their eggs on. This increase may have widespread impacts across the marine food web.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This paper shows a dramatic increase in plastic over a relatively short time period and the effect it&#8217;s having on a common North Pacific Gyre invertebrate,&#8221; said Scripps graduate student Miriam Goldstein, lead author of the study and chief scientist of SEAPLEX, a UC Ship Funds-supported voyage. &#8220;We&#8217;re seeing changes in this marine insect that can be directly attributed to the plastic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Plastic only became widespread in late &#8217;40s and early &#8217;50s, but now everyone uses it and over a 40-year range we&#8217;ve seen a dramatic increase in ocean plastic,&#8221; added Goldstein. &#8220;Historically we have not been very good at stopping plastic from getting into the ocean so hopefully in the future we can do better.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/headline\/2012\/05\/09-2\" >PLEASE CONTINUE READING IN THE ORIGINAL \u2013 commondreams.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Plastic garbage in the ocean has increased 100-fold in the past 40 years and could have ecosystem-wide impacts, according to a study released Tuesday [8 May 2012].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}