http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2014/08/sea-polluted-paint-dust

Sea polluted by paint dust

By Erik Stokstad 7 August 2014 1:15 pm

Even when the sea looks clean, its surface can be flecked with tiny
fragments of paint and fiberglass. That?s the finding from a study that
looked for plastic pollution in the uppermost millimeter of ocean. The
microscopic fragments come from the decks and hulls of boats, and they
could pose a threat to tiny creatures called zooplankton, which are an
important part of the marine food web.

The discovery is ?continuing to open our eyes to how many small
synthetic particles are in the environment,? says Kara Law, an
oceanographer who studies plastic pollution at the Sea Education
Association in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and wasn?t involved in the study.