Abstract
Plastic pollution in seas and oceans has recently been recognized as one of the most impacting threats for the environment, and the increasing number of scientific studies proves that this is an issue of primary concern. Being able to predict plastic paths and concentrations within the sea is therefore fundamental to properly face this challenge. In the present work, we evaluated the effects of sea waves on inertial micro-plastics dynamics. We hypothesized a stationary input number of particles in a given control volume below the sea surface, solving their trajectories and distributions under a second-order regular wave. We developed an exhaustive group of datasets, spanning the most plausible values for particles densities and diameters and wave characteristics, with a specific focus on the Mediterranean Sea. Results show how the particles inertia significantly affects the total transport of such debris by waves.
Highlights
In the last decades the production and consumption of plastic products has drastically increased
The ability of the wave induced drift to transport the particles rapidly decreases according to their increasing size: bigger debris are not able to move in the direction of wave propagation owing to the inertial effects; the interplay with the Eulerian velocities and the Lagrangian particle velocities is non trivial and leads to complex trajectories, especially for larger particle sizes, that develop on the vertical direction without producing a net horizontal displacement
The present study is primarily aimed to understand how the sea waves Stokes drift affects the dynamics of inertial micro-plastics
Summary
In the last decades the production and consumption of plastic products has drastically increased. It is estimated that we globally use in excess of 260 million tonnes of plastic per year, accounting for approximately 8 per cent of world oil production [1]. The lack of regulations and practices able to allow a sustainable and efficient waste management has often led to undesirable releases of plastic within the marine environment [3], resulting in a substantial volume of debris added to the ocean over the past 60 years [4,5,6]. Efficient policies should be aimed at reducing plastic consumption and using biodegradable materials when reliable alternatives are available, and the most recent EU directives are developing in this framework
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