Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 10.1
Plastics Commonly Found in Ocean Debris
Source: Data based on Andrady (2011).
Plastic
Density (g/
cm
3
)
Typical products
Production
(%)
a
LDPE/
LLDPE
0.90-0.94
Packaging film, six-pack rings,
containers, gear
21
HDPE
0.94-0.97
Juice and milk containers, fishing
gear
17
PP
0.90
Rope, packing bands, bottle caps,
fishing gear
24
PVC
1.4
Plastic films and other packaging
material
19
1.04
a
PS
Food service utensils, packaging
and EPS
6
PA
(Nylon)
1.02-1.05
Fishing gear, monofilament line
and film
< 3
PET
0.96-0.97
Soda bottles and packaging bands 7
CA
1.28
Cigarette filters
—
a
Expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) is much less denser than seawater.
Most plastics debris encountered in oceans tends to be the commodity
thermoplastics, primarily PE and PP, in the surface water samples. The
expected high levels of nylons (PA) from fishing gear are not reflected in
floating plastic debris because of their high density. Products such as
cigarettefiltersoremptybottles,thoughmadeofdenservarietiesofplastics,
often float in seawater for awhile because of entrained air and are at times
counted in floating debris.
Largefloatingplasticdebrisitemssuchasnetfragments(fishinggear),rope,
six-pack rings, and plastic bands are well documented to entangle marine
animals including large marine mammals (Hofmeyr et al., 2006; Waluda
and Staniland, 2013). Often, the entanglement restricts the freedom of the
distressed animal to graze and grow. An early review (Laist, 1997) reported
at least 135 marine species to suffer from entanglement in plastics debris.
Smaller fragments of plastics, especially those covered with algae and biota,
