Microplastics Environmental Effect and Risk Assessment on the Aquaculture Systems from South China

Yizheng Li,Kai Huang,Guanglong Chen,Jun Wang,Kaihang Xu

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041869

Abstract

The small size of microplastics and their wide distribution in water environments have attracted worldwide attention and heated discussion, because of their ingestion by aquatic organisms. At present, there are few studies on microplastics pollution in freshwater aquaculture ponds, especially shrimp ponds. In this study, the aquaculture ponds in the Pearl River Estuary were investigated. The abundance and composition of microplastics in different environmental media were studied to explore the potential sources and risk levels of microplastics, so as to provide basic data for the study of microplastics pollution in aquaculture ponds. Microplastics were observed in water and sediment samples at all sampling sites, with the abundance of 6.6 × 103–263.6 × 103 items/m3 (surface water) and 566.67–2500 items/kg (sediment), respectively. Thirty-seven individuals collected in six ponds belong to four species. Microplastics were observed in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) of all fishes and shrimps, with the abundance ranging from 3–92 items/individual (fish) and 4–21 items/individual (shrimp). Among all samples, microplastics with the size range of <1 mm and fiber shape were the most common. The main microplastic components were cellulose, polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene (PE). The results of potential risk assessment showed that the pollution investigation of microplastics should not only consider the abundance. Low abundance does not mean low risk. Taking the toxicity score and abundance of microplastics as evaluation indexes to reflect the pollution status of microplastics may make the results more reliable.

Highlights

After weathering and wear, plastic waste is broken into small polymer particles with a length of less than 5 mm, which are called microplastics (MPs) [1,2,3,4]
It is estimated that the plastic waste in 2015 exceeded 6 billion tons [16], of which only 1% was directly discharged into the marine environment, and most of them entered the soil and freshwater environment [17]
There was no significant difference in microplastic morphology among sampling sites

Summary

Introduction

Plastic waste is broken into small polymer particles with a length of less than 5 mm, which are called microplastics (MPs) [1,2,3,4]. According to their source, MPs can usually be divided into two categories: primary (they are intendedly produced in small size, mostly spherical and commonly used in personal care products) [5]. MPs can be found in all types of environments, such as oceans [7], freshwater [8,9,10,11,12,13] and tap water [14]. The different densities of microplastics lead to their different buoyancy, which makes them ubiquitous in water, and they can be ingested by aquatic organisms

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion