ACS Meeting News: Some marine plastic debris attracts more pollutants than lab studies suggest
Published in the American Chemical Society By
PLASTIC PLUNGE
Rochman deploys plastic samples in San Diego Bay.
Credit: Sarah Wheeler
Some plastic debris in the ocean continues to absorb organic
pollutants for months after reaching marine environments, according to a
field study presented at the American Chemical Society national meeting
in Philadelphia on Sunday. The findings, which contrast with earlier
laboratory studies, could change how researchers assess the effect of
plastics on marine animals.
When fish and other marine creatures eat plastic debris, they consume
a cocktail of multiple stressors, including the plastic itself and the
pollutants it absorbs, said Chelsea Rochman, a graduate student at San Diego State University, who presented the study in the Division of Environmental Chemistry.
Rochman and colleagues deployed pellets used to make six types of
common plastics in San Diego Bay for up to a year. They retrieved
samples at monthly intervals and used gas chromatography/mass
spectrometry to measure concentrations of more than 50 persistent
organic pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and
polychlorinated biphenyls.
Some plastics continued to accumulate these pollutants for months, in contrast with earlier lab studies showing that plastics come to
equilibrium with these pollutants over several days.
The researchers also found that some types of plastic absorbed
10-fold higher concentrations of organic pollutants than others,
suggesting that some plastics could be more hazardous to fish than
others.
This is one of the first field experiments to follow plastic debris
over time to assess how it interacts with pollutants in natural waters,
commented Mark Anthony Browne, an ecologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & Synthesis at University of California, Santa Barbara.
“It provides our most accurate understanding yet of this phenomena and
challenges several theories developed from more simple laboratory
studies,” he told C&EN.
- Chemical & Engineering News
- ISSN 0009-2347
- Copyright © 2012 American Chemical Society
As plastics break apart in the ocean, they also release potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol, which can then enter the food web.
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