Low levels of microplastics (MP) in wild mussels indicate that MP ingestion by humans is minimal compared to exposure via household fibres fallout during a meal.

By A. Catarino, Valeria Macchia, W. Sanderson, Richard C. Thompson, T. Henry. Environmental Pollution, 2018

643 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Microplastics (MPs) are the most numerous debris reported in marine environments and assessment of the amounts of MPs that accumulate in wild organisms is necessary for risk assessment. Our objective was to assess MP contamination in mussels collected around the coast of Scotland (UK) to identify characteristics of MPs and to evaluate risk of human exposure to MPs via ingestion of mussels. We deployed caged mussels (Mytilus edulis) in an urbanised estuary (Edinburgh, UK) to assess seasonal changes in plastic pollution, and collected mussels (Mytilus spp and subtidal Modiolus modiolus) from eight sampling stations around Scotland to enumerate MP types at different locations. We determined the potential exposure of humans to household dust fibres during a meal to compare with amounts of MPs present in edible mussels. The mean number of MPs in M. modiolus was 0.086 ± 0.031 (SE, n = 6)/g ww (3.5 ± 1.29 (SE) per mussel). In Mytilus spp, the mean number of MPs/g ww was 3.0 ± 0.9 (SE, n = 36) (3.2 ± 0.52 (SE) per mussel), but weight dependent. The visual accuracy of plastic fibres identification was estimated to be between 48 and 50%, using Nile Red staining and FT-IR methodologies, respectively, halving the observed amounts of MPs in wild mussels. We observed an allometric relationship between the number of MPs and the mussels wet weight. Our predictions of MPs ingestion by humans via consumption of mussels is 123 MP particles/y/capita in the UK and can go up to 4620 particles/y/capita in countries with a higher shellfish consumption. By comparison, the risk of plastic ingestion via mussel consumption is minimal when compared to fibre exposure during a meal via dust fallout in a household (13,731-68,415 particles/Y/capita).

Subfields: Biomaterials, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5dbddd5a69fee1c27aa234bb8e8839ebc4b8aa13

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Citations in the corpus

Microplastics in Fish and Shellfish – A Threat to Seafood Safety? (2020, background): “Consuming canned sprats and sardines will clearly represent low exposure to microplastics compared to other sources like the air we breathe (Catarino et al. 2018; Rist et al. 2018); based on current knowledge on microplastics in fish, these seafood products should be regarded as safe to eat.”
Microplastics in bivalves and their habitat in relation to shellfish aquaculture proximity in coastal British Columbia, Canada (2019, result): “This is similar to an estimate of 123 particles per person−1 yr−1 in the UK generated by Catarino et al. (2018), who further noted that fibre exposure during evening meals could lead to consumption of 13 731−68 415 particles person−1 yr−1.”
White and wonderful? Microplastics prevail in snow from the Alps to the Arctic (2019, background): “However, although we know that airborne contamination of seafood during indoor food preparation and meals exceeds original MP concentrations (41), there has been unexpectedly little research about the inhalation risk of airborne MPs.”
Twenty years of microplastic pollution research—what have we learned? (2024, background): “In some instances, contamination of our food occurs in the natural environment; however, processing, packaging, and handling can further contribute to microplastic contamination ( 90 , 91 ).”
A Global Perspective on Microplastics (2020, background): “The authors projected that the estimated daily intake of polyethylene terephthalate via dust ingestion for infants was 89,700 ng/kg‐bw/day (C. Liu, Li, et al., 2019) Catarino et al. (2018) compared microplastic exposure from eating mussels to that acquired from indoor dust fallout during the meal.”