8th continent of plastic weighs 270,000 tons

&nbspa recent study revealed that almost 270,000 tons of plastic are floating in the world&rsquos oceans, enough to fill over 35,000 trucks of rubbish.according to a report released on wednesday in the international scientific journal plos one, there is more plastic in oceans than originally thought.the results&nbspreleased&nbspafter 24 expeditions&nbspbetween 2007 and 2013&nbsp&ldquousing an oceanographic model of floating debris dispersal..., and correcting for winddriven vertical mixing,&rdquo explain the authors.the main author, markus eriksen, belongs to the organization institute 5 gyres, which fights&nbspfor the reduction of plastic pollution in the ocean.yet the final figure only accounts for the plastic floating on the surface, not rubbish on sea beds.a previous study run by spanish investigators calculated, with a different method,&nbspa total of over 35,000 tons of plastic particles measuring less than 2.5 centimeters, coinciding with the findings of the new study, which estimates that between 7,000 and 35,000 tons of such pieces&nbspare&nbspfloating on the surface.in june 2006, the program of the united nations for the environment reported that there are about 46,000 pieces of plastic every 2.5 kilometers.such studies measuring the quantity of plastic pollution in the sea are&nbspcontributing to understanding how it affects the environment and&nbspfood chain. according to a 2009 study from the u.s. oceanographic institute scripps san diego university, released in may 2012, the marine ecosystem is extremely disturbed because of the accumulation of plastic, not only by releasing toxic substances into the sea, or killing species that swallow the particles, but also favoring the growth of other species.so far the continent of plastic in the ocean has been&nbspreferred to as &ldquoinvisible,&rdquo as scientists lacked instruments&nbspto&nbspmeasure&nbspits size &ndash the phenomenon remains out of the sight of space satellites for instance. what&nbsphas been&nbspconfirmed, however, is that the &ldquorubbish continent&rdquo of plastic microparticles is growing bigger every day, floating on the surface with several meters of depth.&nbspwhile the international community has failed so far to address the issue &ndash the collection of all the rubbish would be costly &nbspassociations recommend a&nbspdrastic reduction of plastic packaging.