Group items tagged

Study by Plymouth University and Natural History Museum reveals four billion fibres could be littering each square kilometre of the world's deep seas.

Study by Plymouth University and Natural History Museum reveals four billion fibres could be littering each square kilometre of the world's deep seas.

On an isolated stretch of Western Australian beach, artist Tim Pearn creates art from colourful washed-up plastic waste

On an isolated stretch of Western Australian beach, artist Tim Pearn creates art from colourful washed-up plastic waste

Microplastics pollute most remote and uncharted areas of the ocean.

Pollution: Microplastics and colourants found in mussels from India's southeast coast.

Remote island beach plastics point to greater waste problem.

A microplastics (MPs) emergence study in pelagic and mesopelagic species was carried out to delineate coastal degradation and ecosystem status around the Karachi metropolis. Species of high commercial and ecological worth were sampled using a gillnet of 1.5 cm knot-to-knot mesh size in November and December 2021. In total twenty-six individuals including Liza subviridis (15), Thryssa dussumieri (3), Rastrelliger kanagurta (2), and Portunus sanguinolentus (6) were used to perceive MPs. A strong linearity between body length and MPs (R2 = 0.937, SE 0.071 and R2 = 0.928, SE 0.104) were calculated for L. subviridis and P. sangiuilatus, respectively. However, the data of T. dussummeiri and R. Kanagurta showed minimization failure. The MPs in GIT were extracted using direct observation under a sophisticated binuclear microscope and chemical digestion (KOH) together with wet peroxide oxidation (H2O2+FeSO4) methods. The MP materials were categorized as foam, film, fiber, fragment, and beads of three different sizes 170, 120, 100 μm in the stomach, intestine, and esophagus. Film-type MPs appeared frequently, whereas beads were rarely seen. It is hoped that this baseline research would help to minimize industrial release, recognize critical knowledge gaps, and demonstrate MP flux being released into the aquatic environment. The results will support mitigation of this emerging threat to the living resources around the Karachi coastal area.

Plastic pollution has been recorded in eight freshwater streams running into Gulf St Vincent, confirming the regular flow of microplastics into local marine environments - and the need for better waste management systems.