Chinese scientific expedition team monitors marine debris in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters
Xinhua News Agency "Snow Dragon" July 28 (reporter Yu Qiongyuan) On July 28, China's eighth Arctic scientific expedition with the "Snow Dragon" arrived in the Bering Sea high seas waters of the first operation station began operations, the first to carry out the surface ocean floating garbage and microplastics trawl sampling work.
The sea was very rough in the early morning, and the visibility was not high, which increased the difficulty of the operation. The team put the self-designed collector from the tail deck of the "Snow Dragon", and after 20 minutes of trawling, they obtained about 200 ml of Marine microplastic samples.
Microplastics and floating garbage are called "PM2.5 in the ocean", which directly affects Marine life and indirectly affects human beings. Xu Ren, leader of the eighth Arctic scientific expedition, said China has carried out microplastic monitoring in certain sea areas, the first time China has obtained Marine microplastic samples in Arctic and sub-Arctic waters.
Mu Jingli, a member of the expedition team from the National Marine Environmental Monitoring Center, said that since the Snow Dragon set off from Shanghai on July 20, the second day, the expedition team has investigated the situation of floating garbage along the route. The monitoring results show that during the voyage from the East China Sea to the Bering Sea, the existence of floating garbage can be observed. The highest abundance area is about 570 floating garbage per square kilometer, and the trend is gradually decreasing along the latitude. Among them, foam, plastic bags and plastic bottles are the main garbage, accounting for more than 85% of the total."In the future, we will understand the distribution of surface floating garbage and Marine microplastics in the Arctic and sub-Arctic waters through laboratory analysis," Mu said.
Xu said: "China's eighth Arctic scientific expedition carried out the first survey of emerging Marine pollutants such as microplastics, and extended China's microplastics monitoring to the Arctic and subArctic waters, which will promote China's Marine microplastics monitoring into the global Marine plastic waste monitoring and international governance."