Figures given for plastic pollution in oceans

[TylerDurden]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4651756/Shocking-interactive-maps-Earth-s-plastic-pollution.html

[dariorpl]

While this is bad, I'm more worried about chemicals and heavy metals from industrial and household waste. I wonder if anyone has done a measurement like this for soaps, detergents and other cleaning products.

Floating plastics, while they will stay there for longer, can be avoided by marine lifeforms to a large extent, even if not completely. But toxins that dissolve in the water can't be avoided.

[surfsteve]

I think plastic is more of a symbol, like a canary in a coal mine. It's by far not as dangerous as what you mentioned or nuclear waste but since it floats to the top, everybody notices it.

[TylerDurden]

I think plastic is more of a symbol, like a canary in a coal mine. It's by far not as dangerous as what you mentioned or nuclear waste but since it floats to the top, everybody notices it.

Plastics, unlike the other substances mentioned, cannot dissolve into the vast amounts of water in the world's oceans. By contrast, there has always been some heavily  diluted (natural) uranium in the world's oceans but this is meaningless given that the human body has always had quite harmless tiny trace amounts of uranium even in preindustrial times. Obviously, if as time goes on, the  chemical pollution increases to the point where dilution in the oceans is not enough, then there will be a problem, but not yet.