Drifting plastics, the forensics of current and future pollution

Abstract

The most distinctive features of plastics are their durability and presence throughout the world. Improper handling, has filled the oceans with plastic debris.¹ Despite the prevalence of pollution, no proper assessment of pollution has been made to date revealed.^2,3 Here we show that a completely different approach to the clarification of this matter as taken up by various other studies. ^4–8 This research is the first to show that the actual seriousness of drifting plastics undergo degradation to produce monomers, based on decomposition and fields survey. Polystyrene (PS)was decomposed at 30°C and generate styrene oligomer (SO*).⁹ Plastic monomers degraded further and their metabolites became more toxic in the ocean. Since 1950 to 2020, 1.4 billion metric tons (MT) of SO have been shown present in the oceans from field survey. From the seawater volume and SO in deep sea, has been shown to give rise to 2.7 × 10⁷ MT, and 15% of inflowing PS has been found to undergo degradation. 1.5 × 10⁸ MT of PS are adrift until now. The monomers; SO, bisphenol A (BPA), and phthalate (PAE) have a direct negative impact on the marine ecosystem. In addition, the methane and ethane gases generated by PE/PP degradation have a greenhouse effect, suggesting that they are involved in global warming. “Actual plastic pollution” based on decomposition rates and field surveys to clearly show “present and future trends”, forensically. Present result contributes to worldwide current monitoring that should assist in the development of appropriate strategies designed to curb drifting plastic pollution in the oceans. SO* is a mixture of styrene -monomer (SM), -dimer (SD), and -trimer (ST) with a certain composition ratio.