Thousands of tons of tiny plastic particles have been piling up in the mud and marshes of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay since the 1940s.
Pollution levels climbed at an exponential rate decade after decade, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.
What’s happening?
University of Rhode Island researchers collected 10 tubes of layered mud from locations across Narragansett Bay and off the shore of the Rhode Island Sound to trace how plastic contamination has shifted over time.
“For this study, we use sediment cores, and sediment cores are like a time capsule. Sediment in the ocean deposits layer by layer,” said Victoria Fulfer, the study’s lead author and a microplastic scientist at the 5 Gyres Institute.
“As you go deeper into the sediment, you’re going back in time,” Fulfer explained in an interview with the Boston Globe…