A new study published in Communications Biology found that plastic pollution can have negative impacts on the oceanic bacteria that produce 10 per cent of Earth’s oxygen.
The research clarifies that exposure to chemicals leaching from plastic pollution interfered with the growth, photosynthesis and oxygen production of Prochlorococcus, the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria. This study revealed a new and unanticipated danger of plastic pollution.
If management of plastic waste is left unattended, prochlorococcus populations could decrease in some locations, which could affect the other organisms that depend on prochlorococcus for food. Also, it is possible that some prochlorococcus are already affected when in close proximity to plastics. However, it would be decades before enough plastics build up in the oceans to affect prochlorococcus populations on a global scale.
