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Nanoplastic concentrations across the North Atlantic
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Scientists measured nanoplastics (plastic particles smaller than a micrometer) across the entire North Atlantic Ocean for the first time. They found these tiny particles throughout the water column, with estimated amounts in the surface layer alone potentially reaching 27 million tonnes. This mass rivals or exceeds previous estimates for all larger plastics in the entire Atlantic, showing that nanoplastic pollution is far more extensive than previously thought.
Plastic pollution of the marine realm is widespread, with most scientific attention given to macroplastics and microplastics1,2. By contrast, ocean nanoplastics (<1 μm) remain largely unquantified, leaving gaps in our understanding of the mass budget of this plastic size class3-5. Here we measure nanoplastic concentrations on an ocean-basin scale along a transect crossing the North Atlantic from the subtropical gyre to the northern European shelf. We find approximately 1.5-32.0 mg m-3 of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) nanoplastics throughout the entire water column. On average, we observe a 1.4-fold higher concentration of nanoplastics in the mixed layer when compared with intermediate water depth, with highest mixed-layer nanoplastic concentrations near the European continent. Nanoplastic concentrations at intermediate water depth are 1.8-fold higher in the subtropical gyre compared with the open North Atlantic outside the gyre. The lowest nanoplastic concentrations, with about 5.5 mg m-3 on average and predominantly composed of PET, are present in bottom waters. For the mixed layer of the temperate to subtropical North Atlantic, we estimate that the mass of nanoplastic may amount to 27 million tonnes (Mt). This is in the same range or exceeding previous budget estimates of macroplastics/microplastics for the entire Atlantic6,7 or the global ocean1,8. Our findings suggest that nanoplastics comprise the dominant fraction of marine plastic pollution.
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