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Hydrodynamic Constraints on Surface Recovery of Plastic Pellets
Summary
When plastic pellets spill into the ocean, they spread across the water's surface far faster than expected, potentially growing from a small patch to an area of 3-13 square kilometers within just 48 hours. This matters because these pellets break down into microplastics that enter the food chain and eventually our bodies, so understanding how quickly spills spread can help cleanup crews respond before the area becomes too large to manage effectively.
Floating plastic pellets spread rapidly after marine spills, reducing the efficiency of surface recovery. This study models floating pellet transport using advection, turbulent diffusion, Stokes drift, and particle loss, and quantifies patch expansion during the first 72h. Preliminary experiments with popcorn and styrofoam particles showed no lifting from the water surface under the tested conditions, indicating that wind moves light particles along the surface rather than into the air. A two-dimensional diffusion calculation was initialized with a 5650m2 patch associated with a 28m3 spill. Under constant diffusivity, the lower and upper cases reached 2.50 and 6.00km2 after 24h, followed by projected areas of 4.99 and 11.99km2 after 48h. Across diffusion coefficients of 0.5–2.0m2/s, the calculated 48h area ranged from 3.26 to 13.02km2. These estimates describe how the patch may expand under the selected diffusion conditions and show that the area requiring surveillance and recovery may increase sharply within two days. The Python code used to generate the numerical results is provided to support reproducibility.