Microplastic pollution in water and sediment in a textile industrial area

Abstract

Microplastics pollution in the environment is closely determined by the surrounding industrial and human activities. In present study, we investigated microplastics in water and sediment samples collected from a textile industrial area in Shaoxing city, China. The abundance of microplastics varied from 2.1 to 71.0 items/L in surface water samples, and from 16.7 to 1323.3 items/kg (dw) in sediment samples. The polymer type was dominated by polyester both in water (95%) and sediment (79%) samples. The majority of the detected microplastics was predominantly colored fibers smaller than 1 mm in diameter. The high level of microplastic pollution detected in local freshwater and sediment environments was attributed to the production and trading activities of textile industries, for which severe regulations should be envisaged in the future to effectively reduce the local microplastic pollution.