"Trillions of Plastic Bits, Swept Up by Current, Are Littering Arctic Waters"

Schlossberg, Tatiana. "Trillions of Plastic Bits, Swept Up by Current, Are Littering Arctic Waters." The New York Times 19 Apr. 2017.

In “Trillions of Plastic Bits, Swept Up by Current, Are Littering Arctic Waters,” Tatiana Schlossberg describes how a recent study published by a group of researchers from the University of Cadiz in Spain and other institutions shows that a major ocean current is carrying pieces of plastic from the North Atlantic to the Greenland and Barents seas and leaving them there. The plastic is left in surface waters, in sea ice, and on the ocean floor. The study’s lead author, Andres Cozar Cobanas, explains that, “We don’t fully understand the consequences the plastic is having or will have in our oceans,” he said. “What we do know is that this consequences will be felt at greater scale in an ecosystem like this” because it is unlike any other on Earth. This specific section of the ocean is crucial to the thermohaline circulation, which is the global current of the deep water that is controlled by differences in temperature and salinity. When the current brings warm water to the surface, it brings the plastic waste from more densely populated coastlines where they can get trapped by landmasses or by the polar ice cap in the Arctic.

Schlossberg’s article is extremely important to society because it presents the findings of a study that reveals that trillions of plastic items dumped into the oceans every year are adding up quickly and travelling throughout all the oceans. The author included the fact that around 8 million tons of plastic end up in the ocean and that there may be as much as 110 million tons of plastic garbage in the ocean. These substantial figures are definitely a source of concern for environmental scientists, and this concern should be shared by all people who wish to continue living in a relatively clean environment. Cabanas stated that, “This plastic is coming from us in the North Atlantic,” he said. “And the more we know about what happens in the Arctic, the better chance we have” of solving the problem. Hopefully, the researchers will be able to develop a solution quickly and encourage average people to contribute to diminishing the problem of plastic waste pollution in the oceans.

“Trillions of Plastic Bits, Swept Up by Current, Are Littering Arctic Waters” is a well-written article that provides a succinct summary of the study and a thorough overview of the issue. Schlossberg did an excellent job of providing the reader with the most relevant information and including expert quotes and statistics to support her article. I really appreciate how she attached pictures of the researchers collecting plastic waste and pictures of certain fragments because they really help the reader to understand the scientists’ processes as well as what types of garbage were being discovered. The biggest weakness of the article was a lack of context and details surrounding the actual study. The author definitely could have improved the article if she had included more background information on the study, what scientists plan to do with the information, and how this discovery is significant. These details would have provided the reader with a more well-rounded unders