A Relevant Screening of Organic Contaminants Present on Freshwater and Pre-Production Microplastics

Abstract

Microplastics (MPs) have recently been discovered as considerable pollutants of all environmental matrices. They can contain a blend of chemicals, some of them added during the manufacture of plastic to improve their quality (additives) and others adsorbed from the surrounding environment. In light of this, a detailed study about the identification and quantification of target organic pollutants and qualitative screening of non-target compounds present on MPs was carried out in different types of samples: environmental MPs, collected from an Italian river, and pre-production MPs, taken from the plastic industry. Polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were chosen as target compounds to be quantified by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS), while the non-target screening was carried out by High Resolution Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (HRGC–MS). The target analysis revealed concentrations of 16 priority Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA-PAHs) in the range of 29.9–269.1 ng/g; the quantification of 31 PCBs showed values from 0.54 to 15.3 ng/g, identifying CB-138, 153, 180, 52, and 101 primarily; and the detected OCPs (p,p’-DDT and its metabolites) ranged between 14.5 and 63.7 ng/g. The non-target screening tentatively identified 246 compounds (e.g., phthalates, antioxidants, UV-stabilizers), including endocrine disruptors, toxic and reprotoxic substances, as well as chemicals subjected to risk assessment and authorisation. The large assortment of plastic chemicals associated with MPs showed their role as a presumable source of pollutants, some of which might have high bioaccumulation potential, persistence, and toxicity.

Do Freshwater Fish Eat Microplastics? A Review with A Focus on Effects on Fish Health and Predictive Traits of MPs Ingestion

“…The plastic issue is explicitly addressed only in the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD, [9]), but not in other directives, for example, the eight years older European Water Framework Directive (WFD, [10]). The higher attention posed on marine MPs is not due to the presence of higher concentrations in seawater in respect to other environments, as recently shown for freshwater and soil [11][12][13], and this increased attention has led to a better understanding of the MPs toxicity in aquatic ecosystems [14]. A comprehensive review of the literature relating to MPs pollution shows that fish are the most commonly studied group of organisms (38%), especially within studies that assess ingestion in wild catches (27%).…”

Effects and Impacts of Different Oxidative Digestion Treatments on Virgin and Aged Microplastic Particles

“…This alteration could allow an easier and deeper infiltration of water and oxygen from the atmosphere into the sample leading, in time, to an increased effect of ageing [ 64 ]. However, our weathered samples have been dried immediately before FTIR acquisition, therefore, the OH bands origin could be minimally related to the presence of adsorbed humidity from the atmosphere and more likely to the polymeric alcohols, used as a lubricant in plastic, or other by-products easily released during the degradation process [ 5 ].…”

“…Their presence has been reported in all environmental matrices, becoming an emerging problem worldwide [ 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Due to their small size, high volume surface ratio, and their ability to adsorb or release pollutants [ 5 ], MPs’ threats mainly concern their effects on organisms and human health [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. Therefore, MPs monitoring is important to understand their presence in the environment.…”

Impact of Plastic Debris on the Gut Microbiota of Caretta caretta From Northwestern Adriatic Sea

“…Larger debris have macroscopic effects, for instance by inducing gastric blockage and injuries, but also small fragments are known to affect turtle physiology (Bugoni et al, 2001;Derraik, 2002;Kühn et al, 2015;Nicolau et al, 2016). The impact of PD on the turtle health can also be mediated by the interaction with the intestinal microbial community, the composition of which can be altered by plastic-associated chemicals (i.e., adsorbed pollutants or plastic additives), and/or biological contaminants (i.e., plastisphere microbial components) (Amaral-Zettler et al, 2020;Campanale et al, 2020). Probably because of the difficulty in obtaining samples from wild animals, studies connecting microbiome composition and plastic gastrointestinal contamination have been mostly limited to model animals or easily accessible productive species, such as bivalves of interests for food consumption (Lu et al, 2018;Jin et al, 2019;Qiao et al, 2019;Auguste et al, 2020;Gu et al, 2020;Kurchaba et al, 2020;Li et al, 2020).…”

“…Moreover, PD can cause epithelial damages (Fackelmann and Sommer, 2019), that, in turn, may promote local inflammation and a possible response in the gut microbiome structure, that become more prone to colonization by opportunistic bacteria. Moreover, plastics can be vehicle of chemical pollutants, both adsorbed on their surface because of their hydrophobic nature and added to the plastic material itself during manufacturing (Galgani et al, 2014;Campanale et al, 2020), which can act as stressors, forcing changes on the composition of the intestinal microbial ecosystem.…”