Characteristics of microplastics in shoreline sediments from a tropical and urbanized beach (Da Nang, Vietnam)

Abstract

Microplastics in shoreline sediments were investigated from Da Nang beach for the first time. Sediment samples at the two depth strata (0-5 cm and 5-10 cm) at eight sites along the entire coast were collected for identifying the characteristics of microplastics, including their concentration, size, shape, color, and nature. The synthetic fiber was the predominant type of microplastics, accounting for 99.2% of the total items. Blue (59.9%) and white (22.9%) were the most common colors of the fibers. Synthetic fibers showed a homogenous distribution at all sampling sites with a mean concentration of 9238 ± 2097 items kg − 1 d.w. Meanwhile, the fibers tended to concentrate much more at the surface stratum than the deeper stratum. A large number of synthetic fibers (81.9%) were in the size range of 300-2600 μm, which might pose a threat to marine biota and human health.

Environmental Microplastic Particles vs. Engineered Plastic Microparticles—A Comparative Review

“…When a sample consists mostly of biogenic matter, one of the most common preparation methods is to digest the biogenic matrix, either enzymatically or chemically (e.g., with H 2 O 2 , HCl, NaOH, HNO 3 , or Fenton’s reagent) before further separation processes are applied. The digestion is usually followed by a filtration step, in order to isolate microplastic particles for further analysis [ 65 , 78 , 83 , 92 , 94 ]. In some instances, another density separation process is conducted [ 84 ].…”

“…In environmental samples in general, PE is the most abundant [ 73 , 86 , 91 , 122 ], closely followed by PP [ 84 , 91 , 121 , 124 ], PET [ 68 , 94 , 107 ], PS [ 64 , 90 , 121 ], and PA [ 63 , 65 , 120 ], which are plastics mostly produced for single-use purposes [ 149 ]. Some other popular plastics, such as PVC, are not as prevalent as MPs, presumably as PVC is a robust material produced in higher thicknesses for long-use applications, and does not disintegrate as fast as thin packaging material [ 148 ].…”

“…To determine the particle size distribution, the most common methods include laser scattering measurements [ 50 , 118 ], sieving [ 65 , 107 ], and measuring after optical analysis [ 51 , 90 ]. Size distribution measurements by light scattering require the particles to be dispersed in a medium, but both wet and dry dispersion applications are common.…”

“…***,[10,90,109,128] Sieving[55,[63][64][65]84,86,90,93,107,110,119] * = measured recovery rate. ** = differentiated between polymer sub-types.…”

Presencia y evolución de microplásticos en estaciones depuradoras de aguas residuales de la Región de Murcia: propuesta de las mejores tecnologías disponibles para una emisión cero

“…Del mismo modo, se han encontrado MP en sedimentos de Reino Unido (Thompson et al, 2004), Singapur (Ng y Obbard, 2006), Suecia (Norén, 2007), Bélgica (Claessens et al, 2011;Van Cauwenberghe et al, 2013a), Italia (Vianello et al, 2013), Alemania (Dekiff et al, 2014) y España (Bayo et al, 2019), entre muchos otros. Eriksen et al (2014) estimaron que 5,25 billones de partículas de residuos plásticos flotan en la superficie del mar, y durante su migración oceánica, esta basura flotante tiende hacia los márgenes oceánicos (Rapp et al, 2020), haciendo que en las costas de todo el mundo se encuentre un gran número de macróplásticos y microplásticos (Nguyen et al, 2020). El foco de este problema reside generalmente en actividades antropogénicas, originadas tanto en interior como en el mar (Ryan et al, 2009).…”