Surface layer microplastic pollution in four bays of the central Mexican Pacific

Microplastic Distribution and Influence Factor Analysis of Seawater and Surface Sediments in a Typical Bay With Diverse Functional Areas: A Case Study in Xincun Lagoon, China

“…Microplastic abundance in the surface sediments of Xincun Bay during the rainy and dry seasons was 167.6 ± 71.7 item/kg and 288.4 ± 96.8 item/kg, respectively. The average microplastic abundance in the surface sediments was lower than that of other bays, such as Kendari Bay (Indonesia) (Kozak et al, 2021), Sanya Bay (China), Haikou Bay (China), and Wanning Xiaohai Bay (China) (Huang, 2020b) (Table 2).…”

Microplastics in water systems: A review of their impacts on the environment and their potential hazards

“…Among cities, regions with high population density and large impermeable surfaces contributed enormously to microplastic pollution [ 51 ]. High concentrations of microplastics were found in offshore samples associated with sewage overflow sites [ 52 ], and sewage outlets were identified as the significant cause of microplastic dispersal into the water environment [ 50 , 53 ].…”

“…By analyzing the composition of microplastics found in the central Mexican Pacific according to their shape, it was confirmed that the fragments were composed of PP or PE; the fibers were composed of PE or polyester (PES), and the films were made of PE [ 53 ]. However, not all compositions are identical depending on the shape of the microplastics.…”

“…In addition to physicochemical factors, biological factors influence microplastic abundance and distribution. Among the low-density microplastic particles (which are less dense than the ocean density), the fibrous form remains afloat on the surface for 6–8 months, and the spherical particle floats for 10–15 years and then sinks as it loses buoyancy through biological contamination [ 53 ]. Microplastics do not sink, even with the density of pure microplastics, because of the formation of biofilms on the surface of microplastics that could influence their sinking rate [ 22 ].…”

Abundance and distribution of microplastics in surface waters of the Kattegat/ Skagerrak (Denmark)

“…Sampling of small-size MPs fractions in marine waters is a challenging task. Although it is possible to collect MPs with nets of relatively small mesh size (Lindeque et al, 2020), the most promising methods are plankton pumps (Schönlau et al, 2020) and plastic-free pump filtration systems with small-mesh filters, either deployed off-board (Song et al, 2018;Kozak et al, 2021) or connected to the ship water intake (Enders et al, 2015). Manta trawl-based sample collection has established techniques for MPs identification, including microscopy and Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR -FTIR) (Gago et al, 2019).…”