Total world plastic production was less than 1 million metric tons in 1960, but since 2012, yearly production now exceeds 288 million metric tons per year. Due to human carelessness or accidents, land based waste or litter plastics make their way in rivers throughout the world, and then ultimately into every ocean worldwide. Marine pollution due to drifting plastic and global warming due to carbon dioxide are problems with numerous points in common. For instance, both derive significantly from human life activities and may be expected to worsen without effective preventive. From the year 2000 to 2013, 4,300 samples were obtained from Japan coast area, open ocean and in the world. Each sample was found to contain the styrene oligomer (SO). The major constituent was ST. The composition ratios of SO was basically SM 1:SD 1:ST 5. Mean SO contamination values on Japan coastlines were measured in 500 μg/kg in sand and 3 μg/L in water surrounding Japan. The 200 kg from out of 8,000 ~12,000 metric tons of PS that has washed ashore underwent decomposition to generate 320 tons of SO on Japanese coastal area. These SO was found to have diffused into the North West Pacific Ocean. World coastal SO contamination was determined 60 μg/kg in sand and 0.3 μg/L in water. Open ocean SO was detected at 0.2 μg/L in surface and 0.1 μg/L in vertical (– 200 m to – 4,000 m) water. Assuming the volume of world seawater to be 1.4×10<sup>21 </sup>L, 140 million tons SO should be generated from the amounts of debris PS in world oceans. This quantify of SO would lead to production of 875,000 tons PS. It is thus quite evident that, not only does debris macro-PS form micro-size potsherd on beaches but also that it decomposes into SO which is the raw material of PS which subsequently becomes disseminated throughout the ocean.

World oceans under serious threat: Debris polystyrene generate styrene oligomer in ocean water and sand areas

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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