Dr. Sanjay Joshi

Dear reader, last week, we saw how microplastics enter the aquatic food chain and eventually reach giants such as whales. This week, let us move a little further through the marine world and understand how plastic pollution is harming other ocean creatures as well, including sea turtles, seabirds and many other marine species. Like many other animals, sea turtles have been around for 100 million years. They have survived periodical mass extinctions and they have survived through the “Golden...

Dear readers, in continuation of my article from last week, let us once again follow the krill and understand not only how they consume their food but also how they end up ingesting microplastic particles along the way. But before we get to that, it is important to first understand the very basics of the aquatic food chain, because that is where this story truly begins. In all kinds of aquatic ecosystems—whether oceans, seas, lakes, or rivers—there exist extremely tiny microscopic organisms...

The ocean’s giants are being killed not only by ghost nets but also by invisible microplastics rising through the food chain. Last week, we traced how floating plastic waste is swept into five major oceanic gyres – the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian Ocean gyres – where it accumulates in vast offshore zones. This week, we turn to the largest and most notorious of them all: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located within the North Pacific Gyre between...