[amalia (OP)]

Angela wrote to us to understand global warming better:
Are plastics in our oceans speeding up global warming, given that they are quite good at insulating?
Can you help?

[Petrochemicals]

There may be  a minimal effect but it is negligable,  even though the ammount of plastics is large, compared to the surface  area of water it is small. Even the "garbage island" of floating plastic is not continuous plastic, but a denser concentration of floating plastics.

[syhprum]

I feel confident that plastic eating microbes will soon evolve and deal with the problem.