Policy and Action to Address Microplastic Pollution

Managing Marine Plastic Pollution: Policy Initiatives to Address Wayward Waste

Susceptibility of Sardinella lemuru to emerging marine microplastic pollution

Marine microplastics are emerging pollutants that impact across levels of marine food chain at a global scale. Its presence was determined on Sardinella lemuru, a commercial pelagic fish that are harvested generally in the Northern Mindanao, consumed locally, and exported worldwide as bottled or canned sardine products.  The stomach contents of 600 sardines were examined visually under...

Microplastic pollution in St. Lawrence River sediments

Although widely detected in marine ecosystems, microplastic pollution has only recently been documented in freshwater environments, almost exclusively in surface waters. Here, we report microplastics (polyethylene microbeads, 0.40– 2.16 mm diameter) in the sediments of the St. Lawrence River. We sampled 10 freshwater sites along a 320 km section from Lake St. Francis to Québec City by passing s...

Physical transport properties of marine microplastic pollution

Biogeosciences Discussions This discussion paper is/has been under review for the journal Biogeosciences (BG). Please refer to the corresponding final paper in BG if available. Abstract Given the complexity of quantitative collection, knowledge of the distribution of mi-croplastic pollution in many regions of the world ocean is patchy, both spatially and temporally, especially for the subsurfac...

Microplastic pollution in deep-sea sediments.

Microplastics are small plastic particles (<1 mm) originating from the degradation of larger plastic debris. These microplastics have been accumulating in the marine environment for decades and have been detected throughout the water column and in sublittoral and beach sediments worldwide. However, up to now, it has never been established whether microplastic presence in sediments is limited to...