by Wayne Havrelly, KGW Staff <\/p>\n
KTVB.COM <\/p>\n
Posted on May 16, 2014 at 12:21 PM <\/p>\n
CANNON BEACH, Ore. -- It just might be the biggest environmental crisis that most people have never heard about: tiny, contaminated pieces of plastic are polluting the worlds beaches. <\/p>\n
Small plastics along the tide line of an Oregon beach may look like bits of shell, but they are, in fact, a pervasive form of pollution that scientists have discovered on nearly every ocean beach on Earth. <\/p>\n
A recent one-square-meter sample of sand taken from Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton yielded 10 pounds of plastics. <\/p>\n
Tracy Sund picks up small bits of plastic debris along the shore for the City of Cannon Beach, but he cant get to it all. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
These pieces have been at sea a long time, he said holding a small plastic shard. The pieces keep fracturing off, getting smaller and smaller. They [can also] get ingested by wildlife. <\/p>\n
The plastics dont biodegrade. The smallest shards, known as microplastics, can mesh unseen into beach sand and stay unnoticed for years. <\/p>\n
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Microplastics polluting Oregon beaches, killing wildlife<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Wayne Havrelly, KGW Staff KTVB.COM Posted on May 16, 2014 at 12:21 PM CANNON BEACH, Ore. -- It just might be the biggest environmental crisis that most people have never heard about: tiny, contaminated pieces of plastic are polluting the worlds beaches Continue reading