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How much nanoplastic is in the oceans?

August 1, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

It is unfortunately well-known that microplastics are pretty much everywhere on Earth. They are also increasingly found in living things like birds and dolphins as well as in human brains and placentas. The oceans are polluted with plastic, and for the first time, there is now an estimate for the volume of nanoplastics – which are even smaller than microplastics and invisible to the human eye – found in the North Atlantic.

According to a study published in the journal Nature by the microplastics and nanoplastics research group at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany, there are at least 30 million tons of nanoplastics in the North Atlantic, which is more than the weight of all wild land mammals on Earth.

The same researchers have analyzed plastic in lakes, urban air, and even the air in very remote places, but the new study reveals a missing part of the plastics story.

Nanoplastics are microscopic fragments smaller than one micron, about the size of small bacteria. There has been ongoing concern about nanoplastics in ocean water, but there wasn’t the technology available to really investigate it. While nanoplastics were expected to be found in the ocean, the sheer amount of it was surprising.

The average concentration of nanoplastics near coastlines is about 25 milligrams per cubic meter of water, about the weight of a single large bird feather. Nanoplastics are tiny enough that they can easily infiltrate the bodies of living creatures. For fish and other ocean animals, that means constant exposure that builds up over time.

It is highly unlikely that plastic pollution is going to stop any time soon, but there is a United Nations meeting on the subject in August in Geneva.

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Tons of Invisible Plastic Pieces Lurk in Ocean Water

Photo, posted June 24, 2020, courtesy of G.P. Schmal / NOAA via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Microplastics in Antarctica

March 3, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long and typically far smaller than that. They come from a variety of sources, often from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. There are also microbeads, which are tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added to various health and beauty products. Tiny bits of plastic easily pass through filtration systems and end up in the ocean and other bodies of water.

Microplastics are a pervasive problem for which nowhere on Earth is truly untouched. Despite stringent regulations on materials entering Antarctica, scientists have discovered microplastics in the snow near some of the deep field camps there.

A study by the British Antarctic Survey made use of a new and advanced technique that can detect microplastics as small as 11 microns – about the size of a red blood cell.

The research team found microplastics at concentrations ranging from 73 to 3,099 particles per liter of snow.

Snow samples from three different sites identified polyamide (used in textiles), polyethylene terephthalate (found in bottles and packaging), polyethylene, and synthetic rubber. The results suggest that at least the polyamide, which accounted for half the microplastics found, came from local sources.

Additional research is needed to fully understand the sources of microplastic pollution in Antarctica and to understand the broader implications of microplastics in that frozen wilderness. Microplastics have already been detected in several penguin, seal, and fish species.

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Microplastics discovered in Antarctica

Photo, posted February 3, 2015, courtesy of Christian Stangl via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Tick-Borne Pathogens In Canada | Earth Wise

December 27, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Measuring only three to five millimeters in size, tiny ticks are a big problem. They are widely distributed in many parts of the world, especially in warm and humid climates. Ticks are arachnids – not insects – meaning they’re more closely related to spiders than to flies or mosquitos. They are external parasites that feast on the blood of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals – including humans.

In the United States, ticks are responsible for spreading potentially life-threatening infectious diseases. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ticks infect more than 300,000 people with Lyme disease in the U.S. every year, and the numbers continue to rise. Other common tick-borne diseases include anaplasmosis, babesiosis, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and powassan encephalitis.

Ticks are becoming a problem in Canada as well. According to a new study by researchers from McGill University and the University of Ottawa, tick-borne pathogens are on the rise in Central Canada – a region where ticks were never previously detected.

In the study, the researchers collected ticks across Ontario and Quebec. They found that five emerging pathogens were present across their study sites, including the pathogens that cause Lyme disease and babesiosis. The researchers also found that pathogens can transmit in different ways. Typically, pathogens are transmitted to a tick after feeding from the blood of an infected host, like a small mammal. But the research team found evidence of pathogens that could be directly transmitted from adult female ticks to larval ticks.

According to the researchers, more comprehensive testing and tracking is needed to detect the spread and risks of tick-borne pathogens to humans and wildlife in Canada.

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Tick-borne pathogens increasingly widespread in Central Canada

Photo, posted May 4, 2009, courtesy of Jerry Kirkhart via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Tree Diversity | Earth Wise

March 4, 2022 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Scientists have estimated that there are more than 8 million species of plants and animals in existence. Amazingly, only about 1.2 million of them have been identified and described so far and most of those are actually insects. Millions of other organisms have yet to be discovered.

One would imagine that most of these unknown species are tiny things that are hard to spot or encounter. But our ignorance of species even applies to trees, which are pretty easy to spot if you encounter them.

A new study involving more than 100 scientists across the globe has produced an estimate of the number of tree species on the Earth. The new global estimate is that there are 73,000 tree species, which is about 14% more than previously thought. Based on a combination of data from two global datasets, the study yielded a total of 64,100 documented tree species worldwide. The researchers then used novel statistical methods to estimate the total number of unique tree species at biome, continental, and global scales, which includes species yet to be discovered and described by scientists. Therefore, the estimate predicts that there are likely to be over 9,000 tree species still to be found.

Roughly 40% of the undiscovered tree species are likely to be in South America, which is the continent with the highest number of rare tree species and the highest number of continentally endemic tree species – meaning those found only on that continent. Hot spots of undiscovered tree species are likely the tropical and subtropical moist forests of the Amazon basin and the Andes-Amazon interface.

Extensive knowledge of tree richness and diversity is key to preserving the stability and functioning of ecosystems.

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Number of Earth’s tree species estimated to be 14% higher than currently known, with some 9,200 species yet to be discovered

Photo, posted November 5, 2017, courtesy of Deensel via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Biodegradable Microbeads

July 20, 2017 By EarthWise

Microbeads are little spheres of plastic less than half a millimeter in diameter that are added to a variety of personal care and cleaning products such as cosmetics, sunscreens and fillers. They give these products a desirable smooth texture. However, they are so small that sewage filtration systems can’t remove them and they end up in rivers and oceans where they are ingested by birds, fish and other marine life.