Journal ArticleDOI
Plastic Resin Pellets as a Transport Medium for Toxic Chemicals in the Marine Environment
Yukie Mato,Tomohiko Isobe,Hideshige Takada,Haruyuki Kanehiro,Chiyoko Ohtake,Tsuguchika Kaminuma +5 more
TLDR
Field adsorption experiments using PP virgin pellets demonstrated significant and steady increase in PCBs and DDE concentrations throughout the six-day experiment, indicating that the source of PCBs, DDE, and nonylphenols is ambient seawater and that adsor adaptation to pellet surfaces is the mechanism of enrichment.Abstract:
Plastic resin pellets (small granules 0.1−0.5 centimeters in diameter) are widely distributed in the ocean all over the world. They are an industrial raw material for the plastic industry and are unintentionally released to the environment both during manufacturing and transport. They are sometimes ingested by seabirds and other marine organisms, and their adverse effects on organisms are a concern. In the present study, PCBs, DDE, and nonylphenols (NP) were detected in polypropylene (PP) resin pellets collected from four Japanese coasts. Concentrations of PCBs (4−117 ng/g), DDE (0.16−3.1 ng/g), and NP (0.13−16 μg/g) varied among the sampling sites. These concentrations were comparable to those for suspended particles and bottom sediments collected from the same area as the pellets. Field adsorption experiments using PP virgin pellets demonstrated significant and steady increase in PCBs and DDE concentrations throughout the six-day experiment, indicating that the source of PCBs and DDE is ambient seawater...read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Microplastics in the marine environment
TL;DR: The mechanisms of generation and potential impacts of microplastics in the ocean environment are discussed, and the increasing levels of plastic pollution of the oceans are understood, it is important to better understand the impact of microPlastic in the Ocean food web.
Journal ArticleDOI
Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments.
TL;DR: Global plastics production and the accumulation of plastic waste are documented, showing that trends in mega- and macro-plastic accumulation rates are no longer uniformly increasing and that the average size of plastic particles in the environment seems to be decreasing.
Journal ArticleDOI
Microplastics as contaminants in the marine environment: a review.
TL;DR: Ingestion of microplastics has been demonstrated in a range of marine organisms, a process which may facilitate the transfer of chemical additives or hydrophobic waterborne pollutants to biota.
Journal ArticleDOI
Microplastics in the Marine Environment: A Review of the Methods Used for Identification and Quantification
TL;DR: This review of 68 studies compares the methodologies used for the identification and quantification of microplastics from the marine environment and suggests standardized sampling procedures which allow the spatiotemporal comparison ofmicroplastic abundance across marine environments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea
Marcus Eriksen,Laurent Lebreton,Henry S. Carson,Martin Thiel,Charles J. Moore,Jose C. Borerro,François Galgani,Peter G. Ryan,Julia Reisser +8 more
TL;DR: The total number of plastic particles and their weight floating in the world's oceans is estimated from 24 expeditions across all five sub-tropical gyres, costal Australia, Bay of Bengal and the Mediterranean Sea conducting surface net tows and visual survey transects of large plastic debris.
References
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Book
Environmental organic chemistry
TL;DR: An Introduction to Environmental Organic Chemicals is given in this article, where the authors present an overview of the main steps in the development of these processes, including the following: Sorption I: General Introduction and Sorption Processes Involving Organic Matter. Sorption II: Partitioning to Living Media - Bioaccumulation and Baseline Toxicity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Sorption of hydrophobic pollutants on natural sediments
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the sorption of hydrophobic compounds (aromatic hydrocarbons and chlorinated polycyclic aromatic compounds) spanning a concentration range in water solubility from 500 parts per trillion (ppt) to 1800 parts per million (ppm) on local pond and river sediments.
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Estrogenic activity of surfactants and some of their degradation products assessed using a recombinant yeast screen
TL;DR: An estrogen-inducible screen was developed in yeast in order to assess whether surfactants and their major degradation products are estrogenic, and one class of surfactant classes degrade to persistent metabolites that were weakly estrogenic.
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Inhibition of testicular growth in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) exposed to estrogenic alkylphenolic chemicals
TL;DR: Exposure of male rainbow trout to four different alkylphenolic chemicals caused synthesis of vitellogenin, a process normally dependent on endogenous estrogens, and a concomitant inhibition of testicular growth, support the contention that exposure of wildlife to environmentally persistent estrogenic chemicals can result in deleterious reproductive consequences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastics on the Sargasso Sea Surface
Edward J. Carpenter,K. L. Smith +1 more
TL;DR: Plastic particles, in concentrations averaging 3500 pieces and 290 grams per square kilometer, are widespread in the western Sargasso Sea and could be a source of some of the polychlorinated biphenyls recently observed in oceanic organisms.