Tiny Pieces, Big Impact

Juvenile saffron cod swim amongst plankton and microplastic pieces, illustrated. — It can be hard for animals to tell what’s plankton and what’s microplastic when swimming through the ocean. Imagine you are a juvenile saffron cod swimming through the Bering Sea. Can you find the marine debris in your mouthful?
NPS/Elise Wahl, Timberdoodle Studio

Plastic never disappears, it just breaks up into smaller and smaller pieces. Plastic pieces that are less than 5 mm, or the size of a pencil eraser, are called microplastics. Some are not even visible to the human eye! Microplastics come in many forms, including beads, fragments, pellets, and fibers.

In the ocean, microplastics can mix in with pockets of nutrient-rich water, which is full of seasonally abundant plankton. Plankton are tiny animals (zooplankton) and plants (phytoplankton) that are important food for the tiniest of fishes to the largest of whales. These animals are ingesting a side of microplastics along with their plankton soup.

Microplastics can absorb harmful pollutants or leach out toxic chemicals. Wildlife may ingest or be exposed to these contaminants, which is of particular concern for Alaskan communities that depend on harvesting marine mammals and resources. However, more research is needed to understand how wildlife and people might be affected.

There is no part of the ocean left untouched by marine debris.

"Every plastic that has ever been produced is still here, it's just breaking down into smaller and smaller particles, and so it's really important to get the larger pieces of plastic off of the beach before they become microplastics out in the ocean."

Peter Neitlich, NPS Ecologist

Arctic sea ice in remote locations can contain high concentrations of microplastics, surpassing some highly contaminated surface waters in other parts of the world. While the Bering Land Bridge coastline may not be littered with brightly colored microplastics, that doesn’t mean they’re not there. One National Park Service study counted just over 40 pieces of microplastics per pound of sand. This is roughly the same amount found in Boston Harbor!

Most of these microplastics were microfibers, from materials such as polyester or nylon. These synthetic materials are used to make clothing, furniture, fishing nets, and other products. When we wash clothing, microfibers break apart from the fabric and can find their way into the ocean. Microfibers can float through the air and eventually settle in the ocean or be carried by rivers and wastewater into the ocean.