Occurrence of Microplastic in surface water of Jatiluhur Reservoir

Abstract

Microplastic is generally defined as synthetic polymers which size less than 5 mm. Based on the latest research, microplastics pollutions have many impacts on the environment and human. Jatiluhur, as one of the biggest freshwater reservoir in Indonesia, has potential to be polluted by microplastics because the water source of this reservoir streamed from Citarum watershed. Citarum River is one of the most polluted river in Indonesia. To find the occurrence of microplastics and to facilitate future policies in order to overcome microplastic pollution which occurs in Jatiluhur Reservoir, a study of microplastic abundance is conducted. Primary data is obtained by using the volume reduced sampling method. Manta trawl is pulled beside a boat for 5 -15 minutes for each sample and flow meter installed onto the mouth of manta trawl to determine the towing distance in surface water. Microplastic abundance in surface water presented in the form of microplastics amounts per unit surface area. Furthermore, microplastic characteristics analyzed with visual analysis, particle density analysis, and polymer analysis using FTIR. Based on seven sampling locations, microplastics have found in Jatiluhur Reservoir ranging from 0.71×104 – 4.59×105 particles/km2. The most type of microplastic found is fragmented polyethylene.

Development of Microplastic Research in Indonesia

“…Beberapa jenis yang ditemukan di Indonesia diantaranya adalah polistiren (Cordova, dkk. 2018;Falahudin dkk., 2019), PET (Syafei dkk., 2019), dan polietilen (Ramadan & Sembiring, 2020), polipropilen (Ningrum dkk., 2019), dan sebagainya. Jumlah penelitian terkait jenis mikroplastik belum banyak dilakukan.…”

“…Selain itu, tingkat konsentrasi penduduk yang tinggi di pulau Jawa dibandingkan di pulau lain, membuat penelitian mikroplastik pada lingkungan yang dikaitkan dengan faktor antropogenik menjadi lebih relevan dan menarik dilakukan. Terlihat dari dominasi penelitian mikroplastik di Pulau Jawa yang banyak mengangkat isu badan air yang tercemar (Ramadan & Sembiring, 2020;Sembiring & Fareza, 2020), potensi mikroplastik dari pencemaran udara (Asrin & Dipareza, 2019;Syafei dkk., 2019;Yudison, 2020), ataupun potensi pencemaran akibat dari daerah padat penduduk (Afdal dkk., 2019). Meskipun begitu, dengan masih sedikitnya penelitian mikroplastik di pulau lain, menjadi tantangan untuk diteliti lebih dalam.…”

Distribution and environmental risk of microplastics pollution in freshwater of Citarum Watershed

“…On the other hand, the reservoir can also be a source of microplastic pollutants for downstream watersheds [10] because of their higher microplastic content. The dominant microplastics found in the Jatiluhur Reservoir area are fragments from freshwater aquaculture nets [18].…”

“…In Bandung City, it reaches 1,501 tons per day, Bandung Regency 1,105 tons per day, Cimahi City 292.91 tons per day, Karawang Regency 785.6 tons per day, and Bekasi City 1,500 tons per day [3]. Secondary microplastic pollution can also be generated by the fragmentation of freshwater fish cage nets cultivated in three reservoirs along the Citarum watershed [18,28].…”

“…Sample Locations in The Citarum Watershed (A) Ciwalengke River (B) Jatiluhur Reservoir (C) Muara Gembong[17][18][19] …”