Assessment of marine debris on the Belgian Continental Shelf

Cauwenberghe, L. Van; Claessens, M.; Vandegehuchte, M.; Mees, Jan; Janssen, Colin R.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.05.026

Cited by 183 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Areas of low hydrodynamics appear to have high microplastic abundance, such as the Venice lagoon (Vianello et al 2013). Reduced water movement could also be attributed to the difference between concentrations of microplastics in Belgium: higher concentrations of microplastics were identified in sediments from Belgium harbors (Claessens et al 2011) than in beach samples (Van Cauwenberghe et al 2013a). Lastly, microplastics were recorded in deep offshore sediments (Van Cauwenberghe et al 2013b;Fischer et al 2015), which shows that microplastics sink to the deep seafloor.…”

Section: Microplastics In European Seas and The Mediterranean Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and Effects

Lusher

2015

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

349

326

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Microplastics are an emerging marine pollutant. It is important to understand their distribution in the marine environment and their implications on marine habitats and marine biota. Microplastics have been found in almost every marine habitat around the world, with plastic composition and environmental conditions significantly affecting their distribution. Marine biota interact with microplastics including birds, fish, turtles, mammals and invertebrates. The biological repercussions depend on to the size of microplastics encountered, with smaller sizes having greater effects on organisms at the cellular level. In the micrometre range plastics are readily ingested and egested, whereas nanometre-sized plastics can pass through cell membranes. Despite concerns raised by ingestion, the effects of microplastic ingestion in natural populations and the implications for food webs are not understood. Without knowledge of retention and egestion rates of field populations, it is difficult to deduce ecological consequences. There is evidence to suggest that microplastics enter food chains and there is trophic transfer between predators and prey. What is clear is that further research on a variety of marine organisms is required to understand the environmental implications of microplastics in more detail and to establish effects in natural populations.

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Section: Microplastics In European Seas and The Mediterranean Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and Effects

Lusher

2015

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

349

326

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Areas of low hydrodynamics appear to have high microplastic abundance, such as the Venice lagoon . Reduced water movement could also be attributed to the difference between concentrations of microplastics in Belgium: higher concentrations of microplastics were identified in sediments from Belgium harbors ) than in beach samples (Van Cauwenberghe et al 2013a). Lastly, microplastics were recorded in deep offshore sediments (Van Cauwenberghe et al 2013b;Fischer et al 2015), which shows that microplastics sink to the deep seafloor.…”

Section: Microplastics In European Seas and The Mediterranean Seamentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

Bergmann¹,

Gutow²,

Klages³

2015

631

123

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“…Microplastics were observed not only at the sea surface [3,4], in the water column [5][6][7], and in beach sediments [8,9] but also down to deep-sea sediments [10]. Furthermore, microplastics also affect limnic waters that are highly frequented by shipping or tourism, like rivers [11] and lakes [12,13], but also remote waters face the problem of microplastic pollution [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identification of microplastics by FTIR and Raman microscopy: a novel silicon filter substrate opens the important spectral range below 1300 cm−1 for FTIR transmission measurements

et al. 2015

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The presence of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems is a topical problem and leads to the need of appropriate and reliable analytical methods to distinctly identify and to quantify these particles in environmental samples. As an example transmission, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) imaging can be used to analyze samples directly on filters without any visual presorting, when the environmental sample was afore extracted, purified, and filtered. However, this analytical approach is strongly restricted by the limited IR transparency of conventional filter materials. Within this study, we describe a novel silicon (Si) filter substrate produced by photolithographic microstructuring, which guarantees sufficient transparency for the broad mid-infrared region of 4000-600 cm(-1). This filter type features holes with a diameter of 10 μm and exhibits adequate mechanical stability. Furthermore, it will be shown that our Si filter substrate allows a distinct identification of the most common microplastics, polyethylene (PE), and polypropylene (PP), in the characteristic fingerprint region (1400-600 cm(-1)). Moreover, using the Si filter substrate, a differentiation of microparticles of polyesters having quite similar chemical structure, like polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polybutylene terephthalate (PBT), is now possible, which facilitates a visualization of their distribution within a microplastic sample by FTIR imaging. Finally, this Si filter can also be used as substrate for Raman microscopy-a second complementary spectroscopic technique-to identify microplastic samples.

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Assessment of marine debris on the Belgian Continental Shelf

Cited by 183 publications

References 47 publications

Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and Effects

Microplastics in the Marine Environment: Distribution, Interactions and Effects

Marine Anthropogenic Litter

Identification of microplastics by FTIR and Raman microscopy: a novel silicon filter substrate opens the important spectral range below 1300 cm−1 for FTIR transmission measurements

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