The country’s marine life is disappearing at an alarming rate. These tiny particles, often no bigger than grains of sand, pose a grave threat to Australia’s coastal health.
, affecting native wildlife, and entering the food chain. Despite the threat becoming more serious, Australian scientists have discovered an amazing way to tackle the problem.
It uses advanced artificial intelligence to examine thousands of samples in a matter of seconds – a task that would take months for a human – allowing us to gain a vital understanding of where and how we need to take action.
Talking to Yahoo News Australia, Monash’s Khay Fong explained just how significant this technology is.
Using AI to combat the battle against microplastics
In collaboration with fellow researcher Frithjof Herb, Fong said, previously, analysing environmental samples has been a major problem for scientists globally.
“We’ve developed a game-changer that can manage this mix of information sources – something that’s never been possible before,” she said to Yahoo News.
Our testing shows that this AI algorithm is reliable and actually outperforms human experts in analysing microplastic samples. This means scientists can spend less time sorting through data and more time using the results to make real impacts on the environment.
Fong said the technology lets us study data straight away as it comes in, where before it would take months. “This helps the environmental science mob better track ‘plastic clouds’ in the water, so we can predict where the big problems are and how they’re breaking down, giving us a clear direction for cleaning up and measuring how well we’re doing it,” she said.
“We are also hoping that this tool will enable collaboration between different communities dealing with similar plastic pollution problems.” This breakthrough not only will help to remove microplastics from waterways, it’ll also help prevent them from getting into the water in the first place.
“Just a quick clean-up might work for now, but prevention is the way to go,” she said.
The most important outcome of getting real-time data is to inform the international community’s response: showing where this plastic pollution is coming from will empower our collaborators (including NGOs and scientists in the Pacific) to influence policy and to ultimately hold polluters accountable for their own rubbish.
Our tool gives us a better understanding of where microplastic particles might come from, which helps us create a more detailed picture of how plastic waste moves through its lifecycle. This lets us track down the sources of pollution, identify areas that are consistently causing problems, and deal with pollution right at its source.
What’s the estimated number of microplastics currently in the ocean?
These pollutants aren’t just a problem for the environment – they’re also a major health worry for people, making it clear that we need to take more action to stay safe.
One of the country’s leading experts on microplastics, Dr Michelle Blewitt, spoke to Yahoo about the risks associated with microplastics in the ocean.
Blewitt from the Australian Microplastic Assessment Project (AUSMAP) says that with strong winds consistently sweeping across the country, massive amounts of plastics are being swept from overflowing bins into the ocean – where it’s likely to stay for decades to come.
“There are about 174 trillion pieces of micro plastics floating around in the ocean at the moment and it’s expected that the amount of micro plastics in the ocean will just keep breaking down into smaller and smaller bits because of the sun’s rays and the action of the waves,” she said to Yahoo.
Unfortunately, this problem is likely to worsen rather than improve.
Australians can help to ensure that we aren’t littering our beaches and waterways.
Managing plastic pollution, including microplastics, is a costly problem for Australia each year. In 2019, the estimated lifetime cost of plastic globally was around A$5 trillion, with Australia’s share being around A$17 billion.
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This article was first published on Yahoo News Australia at
https://au.news.yahoo.com/aussie-breakthrough-in-devastating-billion-dollar-beach-crisis-first-in-the-world-230335770.html
