Why is most of the plastic washing up on beaches or floating in the world’s oceans clear, blue, or white? This question was raised by Antoinette Vermilye (she/her) vermilye
Plastic will break down due to UV irradiation into smaller particles. Blue and white colours are good at reflecting UV energy and will be less prone to degradation. Clear plastic, like water bottles, will also survive longer because there is less of a reaction between the UV and the surface. It is the generation of free radicals on the surface of the plastic that causes the degradation. So if the light passes through or is reflected, then the plastic will survive longer.
You then have huge amounts of UV stabiliser added, such as oxybenzone, which is used in sunscreen, or similar chemicals that change the wavelength of UV light from a shorter to a longer less damaging wavelength. The products work, but they are horribly toxic at levels as low as 62 ppt parts per trillion. 15,000 metric tonnes of the chemical are used in sunscreen; 70,000 metric tonnes wipes out all life in the world’s oceans. The survival of the oceans are balancing on the edge of the abyss; humanity can not survive if the ocean ecosystem crashes.
Plast and colour resistance to UV oxidation https://lnkd.in/ekRdSxv2.
Clear plastic, like bottles and blue and white plastic, are going to survive longer, and this is what we observe. Photo from Antoinette Vermilye (she/her) taken in the Bahamas
All the other thermal floating plastic colours end up as micro, nano, and molecular plastic; at each stage, the plastic particulate becomes five times more toxic as the diameter is reduced by 50%. Toxicity is a function of surface area and the ability to adsorb other toxic lipophilic chemicals from the water.
The toxicity of plastic is off-the-scale at nano-levels, which is why it is also implicated and is one of the main reasons for bioclimatic climate change;
