“…Microplastics (plastics <5 mm, Arthur et al, 2008) have been observed throughout bottom sediments of marine and freshwater environments, including sediments in rivers (Casta-eda et al, 2014), estuaries (Thompson et al, 2004;Sruthy and Ramasamy, 2017), lagoons (Vianello et al, 2013), lakes (Corcoran et al, 2015), seas (Zobkov and Esiukova, 2017), and deep sea trenches (Van Cauwenberghe et al, 2013;Woodall et al, 2014;Fischer et al, 2015). Microplastics are commonly found in the environment in three forms; fragments which form from mechanical and biological fragmentation of larger plastic items (ter Halle et al, 2016), microbeads which are manufactured as abrasives in cosmetics and air-blasting (Fendall and Sewell, 2009;Mason et al, 2016), and microfibers from sources such as synthetic fabrics and ropes (Browne et al, 2011).…”