The Mediterranean Plastic Soup: synthetic polymers in Mediterranean surface waters

By Giuseppe Suaria, C. Avio, A. Mineo, G. Lattin, M. Magaldi, G. Belmonte, C. Moore, F. Regoli, S. Aliani. Scientific Reports, 2016

668 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The Mediterranean Sea has been recently proposed as one of the most impacted regions of the world with regards to microplastics, however the polymeric composition of these floating particles is still largely unknown. Here we present the results of a large-scale survey of neustonic micro- and meso-plastics floating in Mediterranean waters, providing the first extensive characterization of their chemical identity as well as detailed information on their abundance and geographical distribution. All particles >700 μm collected in our samples were identified through FT-IR analysis (n = 4050 particles), shedding for the first time light on the polymeric diversity of this emerging pollutant. Sixteen different classes of synthetic materials were identified. Low-density polymers such as polyethylene and polypropylene were the most abundant compounds, followed by polyamides, plastic-based paints, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene and polyvinyl alcohol. Less frequent polymers included polyethylene terephthalate, polyisoprene, poly(vinyl stearate), ethylene-vinyl acetate, polyepoxide, paraffin wax and polycaprolactone, a biodegradable polyester reported for the first time floating in off-shore waters. Geographical differences in sample composition were also observed, demonstrating sub-basin scale heterogeneity in plastics distribution and likely reflecting a complex interplay between pollution sources, sinks and residence times of different polymers at sea.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8e5e78d15d2ddf5ccbc7074e83bcd5374d235b68

How researchers see this paper

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In Biomaterials

1. P. Hollman
2. Jeremy Mendoza-Hill
3. A. Lusher

In Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

1. P. Hollman
2. Jeremy Mendoza-Hill
3. Kerem Gökdağ
4. B. Jovanović
5. O. Güven
6. A. Lusher
7. A. Kideys

In Pollution

1. P. Hollman
2. Jeremy Mendoza-Hill
3. Kerem Gökdağ
4. B. Jovanović
5. O. Güven
6. A. Lusher
7. A. Kideys

Citations in the corpus

• Microplastics in fisheries and aquaculture (2017, background): “A recent study on the Mediterranean Sea provides further evidence that microplastic abundances are relatively high compared to other water basins (Suaria et al., 2016).”
• Microplastic litter composition of the Turkish territorial waters of the Mediterranean Sea, and its occurrence in the gastrointestinal tract of fish. (2017, background): “However, central part of Mediterranean Sea seems to have a higher concentration of microplastics with approximately 1.25 million pieces km 2 (Suaria et al., 2016).”
• A Review of Plastic-Associated Pressures: Cetaceans of the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Australian Shearwaters as Case Studies (2018, background): “In particular, two case studies are considered in relation to different levels of environmental anthropogenic impact: the cetaceans of the Mediterranean Sea and seabirds of eastern Australia.”