Preliminary Assessment into the Prevalence and Distribution of Microplastics in North and South Pacific Island Beaches

Abstract

Microplastic pollution has become an increasing danger to marine wildlife and ecosystems worldwide. The continued increase in the production of plastic products has caused microplastic pollution to become more distributed, especially along shorelines. Therefore, to better assess the pervasiveness of microplastics around the Pacific Islands, in this work, we conducted a preliminary investigation into the pervasiveness of microplastics along eight different North and South Pacific Island beaches located in New Zealand and Hawaii. Microplastic prevalence was investigated as a function of beach location, sand type, and microplastic type. Our analysis found that all eight locations contained some level of microplastics, and sheltered fine-grained sand beaches contained the highest level of microplastics, with the largest particle size distribution. In addition, spectroscopy analysis was conducted to assess the plastic type, which showed that nylon and polypropylene were the most common types of microplastics among the tested samples. The results of this study offer a preliminary insight into the microplastic accumulation among different beaches, indicating that sheltered fine-grained beaches and ecosystems may be more susceptible to microplastic accumulation.