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Bottlenose dolphins breaching

Landmark report reveals UK wildlife’s devastating decline

With whales and dolphins already facing many threats, a landmark report released this week reveals...
Dolphins with oil rig

Go ahead for new UK oil and gas exploration threatens whales and dolphins

Permission has been granted for the development of the UK's biggest untapped oilfield off Shetland,...
Icelandic hunting vessels in port

Whaling boat kept in port after more hunt cruelty exposed

Icelandic whale hunting fleet One of the whaling boats involved in the latest hunts in...
Commerson's dolphin

New Important Marine Mammal Areas added to global ocean conservation list

Commerson's dolphin Experts from a number of countries have mapped out a new set of...

New study suggests amount of microplastic in oceans could be much higher

A new global map of aquatic plastic pollution has revealed that rivers in the north west of the UK have the highest microplastic pollution discovered so far anywhere in the world.

Scientists from the University of Manchester took samples from 40 sites across the region with over 500,000 microplastic particles discovered in the River Tame alone.

Microplastics are small pieces of plastic less than 5mm in diameter and include items such as microbeads from washing products (now banned in the UK) and microfibres from clothing. During heavy flooding, the study discovered that 70% of the microplastics, consisting of over 40 billion particles, were washed into the ocean.

The findings, published in Nature Geoscience, suggest that the current estimate for the amount of microplastic pollution in the ocean (five trillion pieces) could in fact be significantly underestimating the true figure.

Once in the ocean, microplastics can end up in the food chain when they are consumed by marine life.

Find out more about why plastic is NotWhaleFood and how you can help.

About George Berry

George is a member of WDC's Communications team and website coordinator.