Microplastic Pollution In Coastal Ecosystems - A Serious Threat To Human Health And Marine Ecosystems

Microplastics, oceanic contaminants, are widely distributed in the marine environment. In this article, Dr Fraddry D’Souza and Ms Sanam Gaonkar investigate the abundance of microplastics in various coastal ecosystems of Goa and raise the issues of potential impacts on marine organisms and environment.

- Dr Fraddry D’Souza and Ms Sanam Gaonkar

Plastic pollution is pervasive in the marine environment due to the properties of buoyancy and persistence. While plastics are durable, primarily because of their chemically inert nature, they are also a big environmental hazard. However, once it becomes litter, this very property—the one that makes plastic long lasting— poses an environmental challenge due to improper disposal and recycling. Most types of plastics persist in the environment for decades at least, and it has been estimated that 60–80 per cent of the world’s litter is in the form of plastic. While some plastics may be recycled or incinerated, other plastics find their way into landfills, or reach wastewater treatment plants, rivers, coastal zones, and seas and oceans where it accumulates in the oceanic gyres.

The term ‘microplastic’ refers to minute fragments of plastic debris that are widespread in oceans. Based on the size of the fragments, such plastic is divided into two main groups: microplastics that are commonly defined as pieces of plastic, typically, smaller than 5 mm, and macroplastics that are larger than 5 mm. Microplastics may disintegrate to particles as small as 1 –100 nm. Microplastics, unlike large fragments of plastic, are not visible to the naked eye, can be visualized under a microscope, or by staining the fragments using a lipophilic dye.

Primary and Secondary Microplastics