Lost but can't be neglected: Huge quantities of small microplastics hide in the South China Sea

Minggang Cai; Haixia He; Mengyang Liu; Siwei Li; Guowen Tang; Weimin Wang; Peng Huang; Ge Wei; Yan Lin; Bin Chen; Jiahui Hu; Zhengnan Cen

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.197

Lost but can't be neglected: Huge quantities of small microplastics hide in the South China Sea

Sci Total Environ. 2018 Aug 15:633:1206-1216. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.197. Epub 2018 Mar 30.

Authors

Minggang Cai¹, Haixia He², Mengyang Liu³, Siwei Li⁴, Guowen Tang³, Weimin Wang³, Peng Huang³, Ge Wei⁵, Yan Lin³, Bin Chen², Jiahui Hu³, Zhengnan Cen³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China; Coastal and Ocean Management Institute, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China; College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China. Electronic address: mgcai@xmu.edu.cn.
² Coastal and Ocean Management Institute, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.
³ College of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.
⁴ College of Materials, Fujian Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361102, China.
⁵ School of Humanities, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.

PMID: 29758873
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.03.197

Abstract

Large quantities of microplastics with small particle sizes were found in the South China Sea (SCS). The abundances of microplastics in seawater were 0.045±0.093and 2569±1770particles/m³ according to the bongo net and pumping sampling methods, respectively. Smaller-size fractions (size<0.3mm) contributed 92% of the number of microplastics to the total load. Continental slope is the largest reservoir of microplastics with an inventory of 295tons. 21 polymer types were found in the samples using the micro Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), among which alkyds (22.5%) and polycaprolactone (PCL) (20.9%) accounted for almost half of the total polymer content. Lighter plastics would not only concentrate upon the coastal area, being more likely to drift further into open seas with ocean currents. The distribution characteristics showed that it was mainly controlled by terrestrial input of the Pearl River. This study, as the first report from SCS on microplastics in water for its distribution and influence factors, provided impetus for further research on the transportation fate and the behavior of this emerging pollutant from coastal zone to the open oceans.

Keywords: Distribution; Inventory; Marginal sea; Microplastic; Seawater; South China Sea.