Scientists from HR Wallingford, in Oxfordshire, and Queen Mary University created a model to simulate the breakdown of plastic and how long it takes to end up in the deep sea. They found that existing pollution would still float on the surface for more than 100 years, even if no more floating plastic was dumped in the ocean. Those behind the study said the research offered "critical insights" into "the challenges of removing plastic from marine environments".Prof Andrew Manning, technical directr at HR Wallingford, said: "This study helps explain why so much of the plastic we expect to find at the ocean surface is missing." He explained that as large plastics fragment over decades, they "become small enough to attach" to marine snow - which are tiny organic particles that sink to the ocean floor. But, even after a hundred years, he said fragments could still be found at surface level "floating and breaking down". The study found that the breakdown of plastic over the time was "the limiting factor" in removing it from the ocean surface. It found that after a century, about 10% of the original plastic could remain afloat, where it releases harmful microplastics into the water."To tackle the problem properly, we need long-term thinking that goes beyond just cleaning the surface," Prof Manning said.

The study is the third and final one of its kind by Queen Mary University of London and HR Wallingford exploring the journey of plastic in the ocean. The study found that the breakdown of plastic over the time was "the limiting factor" in removing it from the ocean surface. It found that after a century, about 10% of the original plastic could remain afloat, where it releases harmful microplastics into the water. To tackle the problem properly, we need long-term thinking that goes beyond just cleaning the surface," Prof Manning said.   https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8v5jgyq20o   

And in Rivers too! Global production of plastic has increased exponentially over the past decades. Annual world production has increased from 2 million tonnes (Mt) in 1950 to 234 Mt in 2000 and 460 Mt in 2019. In a business-as usual scenario, the OECD projects global plastic production to triple by 2060. Large shares of the plastic produced soon turn out as waste, especially short-lived products such as packaging and single-use plastics – like this 353 Mt of plastic waste were generated globally in 2019 (OECD 2022). While the United States show by far the largest per capita plastic waste generation rate, major increases are expected for emerging economies in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, where plastic waste generation is forecast to quadruple by 2060. This is alarming, as solid waste management in these countries is often inadequate and will not be able to keep up with waste generation, considering the various challenges in waste management in developing countries. Rapid urbanisation trends resulting in large informal settlements will further aggravate the situation. Plastic waste far too often ends up in the environment, polluting land, rivers, and oceans. While some types of plastic are very stable, others very slowly fragment into tiny microplastic particles and eventually further into non-visible nanoplastics. As plastics can remain in the environment for many decades and production and use of plastic continues to increase, plastic pollution will be building-up exponentially over the next decades. This is ever more worrying since the resulting risks for human and environmental health are not yet fully understood.

Microplastics are defined as plastic particles smaller than 5mm in diameter in the international policy debate, e.g. in the OECD Global Plastic Outlook. Nanoplastics are considered a subset of microplastics, usually defined as being under 100 nm in size (UNEP 2022). However, various ongoing research on microplastic and nanoplastic uses different definitions, making it difficult to compare results. • Microplastics can be categorized by their source. Primary microplastics are purposefully made to be that size (e.g. microbeads used in cosmetics and personal care products, virgin resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing processes). Secondary microplastics are the result of fragmentation of macroplastic into smaller particles, either during use or after disposal into the environment. • Microplastics make up 12% of plastic pollution flows into the environment. Most microplastics found in the environment are secondary microplastics, with major sources including road transport (tire abrasions and brake wear), synthetic fibres, and wastewater sludge. Nevertheless, primary microplastics are also an important source of plastic pollution. Moreover, microplastics in the environment, especially in rivers and oceans, result from break-down of larger plastic items. • Microplastics are found everywhere - once microplastics are released into the environment they are transported in various ways incl. through the air, rivers, and the food web, as they are ingested by animals. Like this microplastics are carried to even the most remote places, for example the arctic and high mountain glaciers. Microplastics also have been detected in human blood and lungs. The pervasiveness of microplastics across our planet raises serious concerns for human and environmental health.

The understanding of sources, pathways, and fate of microplastics in the environment is still limited. More research is needed to better understand the full extent and impacts of microplastic pollution. However, considering the fact that once leaked into the environment, microplastics are difficult to contain, this should by no means delay the implementation of preventive policies to reduce microplastic pollution.

 Rivers and lakes act as plastic pollution reservoirs Around 32% of all plastic pollution ends up in aquatic environments, i.e. in rivers, lakes and oceans. Direct dumping of waste contributes a significant portion of plastic in rivers. But mismanaged waste from land can also be flushed into water bodies, e.g. by heavy rains, which feed into larger tributaries and rivers, which in turn empty into oceans. In this way, plastic from far inland can travel many miles through local streams into larger tributaries and main river down to the coastline. Rivers have for long mainly been considered a mere courier for plastic into the oceans, but more recent research found that a major part of the plastic remains within the river systems for many years, like water bottles from the 1970s at the riverbank of the Seine have shown. In 2019 alone, 5.8 Mt of plastic waste are estimated to have ended up in rivers and lakes, of which only 1.7 Mt flowed into the ocean.

Huge amounts of plastics have already accumulated in rivers and lakes and the problem is piling up: estimates are that more than 109 million tons of plastic are floating around or settling at the bottom of rivers and lakes -much more than the 30 million tons accumulated in the world’s oceans – and these numbers are expected to triple until 2060 (OECD 2022). This figure by the OECD shows current and expected plastic pollution flows in aquatic environments. Highest plastic pollution is found in rivers running through densely populated urban areas in Asia where waste management is often lacking. Researchers expect Africa to establish on the list of riverine plastic pollution hotspots in the next decades. Similar observations were made for microplastic pollution of freshwater bodies, where highest concentrations were found in China and lowest in Switzerland (Chen et al. 2022). Nevertheless, microplastics have also been found in remote Swiss mountain lakes  https://www.sdc-water.ch/dam/en/sd-web/2phc2tlfJFlg/Reseau-trendsheet-8-plastic%20pollution-2024-adelphi_EN.pdf

What the WTO’s deal to curb fisheries subsidies means and what it could achieve. The Conversation Daniel Skerritt Affiliated Researcher, Fisheries Economics Research Unit, University of British Columbia Rashid Sumaila Director & Professor, Fisheries Economics Research Unit, University of British Columbia September 21, 2025After nearly 25 years of negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) finally has its first legally binding agreement to tackle government fisheries subsidies. After two-thirds of WTO members ratified the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies, the deal has entered into force. It marks a long-overdue step toward addressing the role harmful fisheries subsidies play in overfishing. Fisheries subsidies can cause harm by distorting markets and creating unequal competition — so-called “trade injuries.” In addition, they can cause ecological harm by increasing the capacity of fishing vessels and fleets. The result is overcapacity: too many boats chasing too few fish, which often leads to overfishing. When WTO talks on fisheries subsidies began in 2001, fish populations were already in decline. Today, 38 per cent of fish stocks are overfished, and a further 50 per cent are fully exploited. That means most of the world’s fisheries are being fished at or beyond their biological limits. For decades, government subsidies have helped industrial fishing fleets expand, often with little regard for sustainability. These subsidies have distorted access to fish and seafood, fuelled overfishing and harmed coastal communities — especially in low-income countries where fish are critical to food security and livelihoods. This agreement is a major milestone, but it’s only the beginning. Here’s what the agreement covers, why it matters and what needs to happen next to protect ocean health and ensure an equitable ocean economy for coastal communities. 

Like walking through time’: as glaciers retreat, new worlds are being created in their wake. Guardian  Katherine Hill Photographs by Nicholas JR White 13 Sept 2025   As Swiss glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, new species move in and flourish, but entire ecosystems and an alpine culture can be lost.  From the slopes behind the village of Ernen, it is possible to see the gouge where the Fiesch glacier once tumbled towards the valley in the Bernese Alps. The curved finger of ice, rumpled like tissue, cuts between high buttresses of granite and gneiss. Now it has melted out of sight.

People here once feared the monstrous ice streams, describing them as devils, but now they dread their disappearance. Like other glaciers in the Alps and globally, the Fiesch is melting at ever-increasing rates. More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers.

The neighbouring Great Aletsch, like the Fiesch, flows from the high plateau between the peaks of the Jungfrau-Aletsch, a Unesco region in the Swiss canton of Valais and Europe’s longest glacier. It is receding at a rate of more than 50 metres a year, but from the cable car above it remains a mighty sight. Clouds scud across the sky and shafts of light marble the ice. On the rocky slopes leading down to the glacier from the ridge, there are pools of aquamarine brilliance, the ground speckled with startling alpine flowers. The ice feels alive, with waterfalls plunging into deep crevasses and rocks shimmering in the sun. “It’s just so diverse, these harsh mountains and ice, and up the ridge, a totally different habitat,” says Maurus Bamert, director of the environmental education centre Pro Natura Aletsch. “This is really special.”Participants now pray for the glacier not to vanish, but they once prayed for it to retreat and stop swallowing their meadows. Many of the living worlds in the ice and snow are not visible to the human eye. “You don’t expect a living organism on the ice,” Bamert says. But there is a rich ice-loving biotic community and surprising biodiversity that thrives in this frozen landscape.

Springtails or “glacier fleas” survive on the snow’s crust – this year alone, five new species were identified in the European Alps. But there are also algae, bacteria, fungi and ice worms, as well as spiders and beetles, which feed on springtails. As ice melts, this landscape and its inhabitants, human and non-human, are all affected. Along the glacier’s path, ice turns to water and the rushing sound of the river becomes audible. In 1859, at the greatest extent of its thickness, the glacier reached 200 metres higher than it does now. The landscape revealed by the melt is mostly bare rock, riven with fissures that spill across the hillside. Jasmine Noti from Aletsch Arena, the regional tourism organisation, says these widen each year, new cracks appear and routes are redesigned. The ice acts like a massive buttress, gluing the hillside together, and as it melts, slippage and instability increase.

As the edges of the glacial valley descend into the cool cover of the Aletschwald forest, “it’s like walking through time”, says Bamert. On the higher slopes, older pines dominate, but lower down the trees thin, and the pioneer species of larch and birch cover the hillside: early signs of newer postglacial reforestation. It only takes about five to 10 years for plants to colonise the land. Further down yellow saxifrage and mountain sorrel cling to the rocks. All this was once under ice sheets, but the succession of growth tells a story of glacial retreat, historic and recent.Tom Battin, professor of environmental sciences at Lausanne’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, says glacial margins are a transitional landscape where ecosystems are vanishing and appearing. An expert on the microbiology of stream ecosystems, Battin led a multiyear project on vanishing glaciers and what is lost with them.

As he walks down to the Märjelensee, one of the Aletsch’s glacial lakes, this transition is readily apparent. In this mountain hollow, there was once an expansive lake with ice cliffs around its rim. Today, the pools of water are lit by patchy sun and rain, fish jumping and bog cotton dancing in summer light. Battin points to aquatic mosses. These, he says, could never live in glacial streams which are fast flowing and extreme. Wading into the water, he searches for the golden-brown blooms of a particular alga, Hydrurus foetidus, which is a keystone species that thrives in glacier-fed rivers, fixing carbon dioxide into organic matter. There are whole worlds in and around the ice, poorly known and understood until recently. Mountains are like high islands, Battin says, with unique ecosystems and endemic species.

“Without this biodiversity which you can’t see,” he says, “all that other biodiversity that people care about might disappear.”......read on    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/13/switzerland-alps-fiesch-aletsch-glaciers-retreat-ecosystems-mountains-culture-aoe