Anika Ballent

The University of Western Ontario | UWO · Department of Earth Sciences

The global persistence of plastic debris coupled with enormous and ever-increasing production rates of plastic materials has led to its designation as a symbol of anthropogenic influence on Earth's natural processes. Entombing plastic in landfills and under newly built urban structures aids with burial, as does increasing its density by adding func...

Microplastics contamination of Lake Ontario sediments is investigated with the aim of identifying distribution patterns and hotspots in nearshore, tributary and beach depositional environments. Microplastics are concentrated in nearshore sediments in the vicinity of urban and industrial regions. In Humber Bay and Toronto Harbour microplastic concen...

With knowledge of typical hydrodynamic behavior of waste plastic material, models predicting the dispersal of benthic plastics from land sources within the ocean are possible. Here we investigated the hydrodynamic behavior (density, settling velocity and resuspension characteristics) of non-buoyant preproduction plastic pellets in the laboratory. F...

Given the complexity of quantitative collection, knowledge of the distribution of microplastic pollution in many regions of the world ocean is patchy, both spatially and temporally, especially for the subsurface environment. However, with knowledge of typical hydrodynamic behavior of waste plastic material, models predicting the dispersal of pelagi...