The Current Status of Microplastics Research

The Vice Presidential debate last night spent a little time focusing on the issue of climate change, but neither of the candidates spoke about the issue of microplastics pollution. Why? Worldwide plastics production is increasing more rapidly than global carbon emissions [1] and may represent an equivalent source of concern for global biodiversity [2], yet anthropogenic marine debris (AMD) doesn't get talked about as much as climate change. Some might argue that AMD is harder to quantify than climate change and is a much newer concern, so there is not as much media coverage and support; the only time that microplastics pollution was discussed at length in the United States was with the 2015 USDA microbead-free waters act, which prohibits the manufacturing, packaging, and distribution of rinse-off cosmetics containing plastic microbeads. The act took effect in 2017, with the final implementation in 2019. The United Nations also took a stand agains microplastics pollution by launching a 2017 initiative called Clean Seas, with the aim of global engagement in the fight against microplastics pollution.

Therefore, microplastics pollution must be decreasing, right? A recent 2020 paper found that microplastics pollution may actually be underestimated in the ocean, largely because works are focusing on pollution in the water column and are not assessing sediment concentrations. Microplastics pollution in ocean sediments may total more than 14.4 million metric tons [3], and due to challenges in assessing the pollutants and a lack of research globally about their presence in the environment, the 14.4 million metric tons may be an underestimate. The 2020 work excites me, however, because few works before it had ever considered the fate of microplastics that enter the ocean unless the authors were interested in the consumption of microplastics by fish or marine mammals. I hope that with more published work on the status of microplastics pollution governments, both locally and internationally, will start to approach conservation solutions that consider the scope and detriment of microplastics in the marine environment.

As an aside, my own research has been rescheduled (hopefully) for the end of the month, and I will take lots of pictures of my work, I promise, to keep you updated on what is happening in the sediments of the Big Bend and to add to the global literature on sedimentary microplastics pollution.

[1] Borrelle, S. B., Rochman, C. M., Liboiron, M., Bond, A. L., Lusher, A., Bradshaw, H., & Provencher, J. F. (2017). Opinion: Why we need an international agreement on marine plastic pollution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(38), 9994–9997

[2] Sutherland, W.J., Clout, M., Côté, I.M., Daszak, P., Depledge, M.H., Fellman, L., Fleishman, E., Garthwaite, R., Gibbons, D.W., De Lurio, J., Impey, A.J., Lickorish, F., Lindenmayer, D., Madgwick, J., Margerison, C., Maynard, T., Peck, L.S., Pretty, J., Prior, S., Redford, K.H., Scharlemann, J.P.W., Spalding, M., & Watkinson, A.R. (2010). A horizon scan of global conservation issues for 2010. Trends Ecol. Evol. 25, 1–7.

[3] Barrett, J., Chase, Z., Zhang, J., Banaszak Holl, M.M., Willis, K., Williams, A., Hardesty, B.D., & Wilcox, C. (2020). Microplastic pollution in deep-sea sediments from the Great Australian Bight. Front. Mar. Sci. 7, 576170.