“…The vast majority (~60%) was deposited in Europe, America, Russia and Asia (Table 2 ). Although deposition of TWPs to Antarctica was very small compared to other regions (0.03 kt year −1 for PM2.5, 0.01 kt year −1 for PM10), other forms of microplastics have been determined there likely transported via sea and/or air 55 . Fig.…”
In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present global simulations of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPstire wear particles and BWPsbrake wear particles), a major source that can be quantified relatively well. We find a high transport efficiencies of these particles to remote regions. About 34% of the emitted coarse TWPs and 30% of the emitted coarse BWPs (100 kt yr −1 and 40 kt yr −1 respectively) were deposited in the World Ocean. These amounts are of similar magnitude as the total estimated direct and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr −1). We suggest that the Arctic may be a particularly sensitive receptor region, where the light-absorbing properties of TWPs and BWPs may also cause accelerated warming and melting of the cryosphere.
“…The vast majority (~60%) was deposited in Europe, America, Russia and Asia (Table 2 ). Although deposition of TWPs to Antarctica was very small compared to other regions (0.03 kt year −1 for PM2.5, 0.01 kt year −1 for PM10), other forms of microplastics have been determined there likely transported via sea and/or air 55 . Fig.…”
In recent years, marine, freshwater and terrestrial pollution with microplastics has been discussed extensively, whereas atmospheric microplastic transport has been largely overlooked. Here, we present global simulations of atmospheric transport of microplastic particles produced by road traffic (TWPstire wear particles and BWPsbrake wear particles), a major source that can be quantified relatively well. We find a high transport efficiencies of these particles to remote regions. About 34% of the emitted coarse TWPs and 30% of the emitted coarse BWPs (100 kt yr −1 and 40 kt yr −1 respectively) were deposited in the World Ocean. These amounts are of similar magnitude as the total estimated direct and riverine transport of TWPs and fibres to the ocean (64 kt yr −1). We suggest that the Arctic may be a particularly sensitive receptor region, where the light-absorbing properties of TWPs and BWPs may also cause accelerated warming and melting of the cryosphere.
“…The seasonal trapping and release of microplastics could transport them into areas which may have otherwise not have received an inflow of plastics to the area, and a decrease in sea ice extent may open up potential new shipping routes through the Arctic, which could lead to an increase in direct deposition of plastic pollution (Cózar et al, 2017). Despite evidence suggesting that microplastics may be present around the whole of the Antarctic continent (Hoffmann et al, 2020;Lacerda et al, 2019), far less is known about the potential for microplastic accumulation in sea ice in the Southern Ocean, with only one study reporting empirical data from Antarctic sea ice at the time of writing (Kelly et al, 2020). Kelly et al (2020) report an average of 11.71 particles L -1 in east Antarctic sea ice and suggest that sea ice in the Southern Ocean may act as a sink for microplastic pollution, with the potential to impact the biogeochemistry and food webs of this once thought to be pristine environment.…”
Marine plastic pollution was first documented in the 1970s but has gained attention and popularity both within the scientific community and with the general public over the past decade. Despite public awareness of the issues associated with plastic pollution and a societal shift toward a reduction in single-use plastics, global plastic production reached 359 million tonnes in 2018 (PlasticsEurope, 2019), of which between 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes are thought to enter the marine environment (Jambeck et al., 2015). Floating marine plastic pollution is estimated at around 250,000 tonnes, although this is thought to only reflect around 1% of the total amount of plastic that has entered the marine environment over the past 60-70 years and much of the "missing" plastic may be within the water column and within marine sediments (Mountford & Morales Maqueda, 2019; van Sebille et al., 2020). Both empirical data and the use of numerical modeling have shown that plastics have pervaded remote regions of the world's oceans, from deep sea sediments (Courtene
“…Plastic pollution is omnipresent in marine and estuarine environments, including all coastal areas and remote beaches [1,2], throughout the open ocean and water column [3], trapped in sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic [4,5], and on the sea floor [6,7]. One estimate of plastic standing stock in surface waters of the world's oceans is, at a minimum, 5.25 trillion plastic particles with a mass of 268,940 tons [3].…”
Since plastics degrade very slowly, they remain in the environment on much longer timescales than most natural organic substrates and provide a novel habitat for colonization by bacterial communities. The spectrum of relationships between plastics and bacteria, however, is little understood. The first objective of this study was to examine plastics as substrates for communities of Bacteria in estuarine surface waters. We used next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize communities from plastics collected in the field, and over the course of two colonization experiments, from biofilms that developed on plastic (low-density polyethylene, high-density polyethylene, polypropylene, polycarbonate, polystyrene) and glass substrates placed in the environment. Both field sampling and colonization experiments were conducted in estuarine tributaries of the lower Chesapeake Bay. As a second objective, we concomitantly analyzed biofilms on plastic substrates to ascertain the presence and abundance of Vibrio spp. bacteria, then isolated three human pathogens, V. cholerae, V. parahaemolyticus, and V. vulnificus, and determined their antibiotic-resistant profiles. In both components of this study, we compared our results with analyses conducted on paired samples of estuarine water. This research adds to a nascent literature that suggests environmental factors govern the development of bacterial communities on plastics, more so than the characteristics of the plastic substrates themselves. In addition, this study is the first to culture three pathogenic vibrios from plastics in estuaries, reinforcing and expanding upon earlier reports of plastic pollution as a habitat for Vibrio species. The antibiotic resistance detected among the isolates, coupled with the longevity of plastics in the aqueous environment, suggests biofilms on plastics have potential to persist and serve as focal points of potential pathogens and horizontal gene transfer.
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