Plastic pollution in Moreton Bay sediments, Southeast Queensland, Australia

Elvis D Okoffo; Emmeline Tan; Alistair Grinham; Sai Meghna Reddy Gaddam; Josie Yee Hang Yip; Alice J Twomey; Kevin V Thomas; Helen Bostock

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170987

Plastic pollution in Moreton Bay sediments, Southeast Queensland, Australia

Sci Total Environ. 2024 Apr 10:920:170987. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170987. Epub 2024 Feb 15.

Authors

Elvis D Okoffo¹, Emmeline Tan², Alistair Grinham³, Sai Meghna Reddy Gaddam², Josie Yee Hang Yip², Alice J Twomey², Kevin V Thomas⁴, Helen Bostock²

Affiliations

¹ Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia. Electronic address: e.okoffo@uq.edu.au.
² School of the Environment, Faculty of Science, The University of Queensland, Australia.
³ School of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Architecture, and Information Technology, University of Queensland, Australia.
⁴ Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), The University of Queensland, 20 Cornwall Street, Woolloongabba, QLD 4102, Australia.

PMID: 38365023
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170987

Abstract

The mounting issue of plastic waste in the aquatic ecosystem is a growing source of concern. Most plastic waste originates on land and a significant proportion of this eventually finds its way into the marine environment, which is widely regarded as a major repository for plastic debris. Currently, there exists a substantial gap in our understanding of how much plastic, the main polymer types, and the distribution of plastic in the marine environment. This study aimed to provide information on mass concentrations of a range of plastics in the surface sediments in the semi-enclosed Moreton Bay, just offshore the large city of Brisbane, Southeast Queensland, Australia. Surface sediment samples were quantitatively analysed for a suite of 7 common plastic polymer types (i.e., polystyrene (PS), polycarbonate (PC), poly-(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)) using a pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) followed by double-shot microfurnace pyrolysis coupled to gas chromatography mass spectrometry (Pyr-GC/MS). The advantage of this approach is that it can measure plastics below the limit of visual detection. The study revealed that Σ₇plastics were consistently present in the samples, although the concentrations displayed a wide range of concentrations from 3.3 to 2194.2 μg/g across different sites. Among the polymers analysed, PE and PVC were found at the highest concentrations, ranging from 2.3 to 1885.9 μg/g and 3.0-979.5 μg/g, respectively. Based on the average concentrations of plastics measured, the dry bulk density and volume of sediments within the top 10 cm of the bay, it was estimated that there is a minimum of 7000 t of plastics stored in the surface sediments of the bay. This study is the first to report the mass concentrations of identified plastics and identify the main polymer types in Moreton Bay. This is important information to develop management plans to reduce the plastic waste entering the coastal marine environment.

Keywords: Australia; Marine sediments; Microplastics; Moreton Bay; Plastics; Pyr-GC/MS.