Abstract
Microplastic contamination of the marine environment is widespread, but the extent to which the marine food web is contaminated is not yet known. The aims of this study were to go beyond visual identification techniques and develop and apply a simple seafood sample cleanup, extraction, and quantitative analysis method using pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry to improve the detection of plastic contamination. This method allows the identification and quantification of polystyrene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, and poly(methyl methacrylate) in the edible portion of five different seafood organisms: oysters, prawns, squid, crabs, and sardines. Polyvinyl chloride was detected in all samples and polyethylene at the highest total concentration of between 0.04 and 2.4 mg g-1 of tissue. Sardines contained the highest total plastic mass concentration (0.3 mg g-1 tissue) and squid the lowest (0.04 mg g-1 tissue). Our findings show that the total concentration of plastics is highly variable among species and that microplastic concentration differs between organisms of the same species. The sources of microplastic exposure, such as packaging and handling with consequent transference and adherence to the tissues, are discussed. This method is a major development in the standardization of plastic quantification techniques used in seafood.
Highlights
The consumption of food and drinks[1] and inhalation[2] are the primary known routes of human exposure to micro- and nanosized plastics in the environment
It has been further suggested that an average person could be ingesting approximately 5 g of plastic every week based on the consumption of common food and beverages, with shellfish contributing to 0.5 g of the total weekly intake.[12]
MS) is a promising technique for analyzing microplastics that are too small to be analyzed by other techniques and where they exist in complex environmental samples.[29,30]
Summary
The consumption of food and drinks[1] and inhalation[2] are the primary known routes of human exposure to micro- and nanosized plastics in the environment. MS) is a promising technique for analyzing microplastics that are too small to be analyzed by other techniques and where they exist in complex environmental samples.[29,30] Initially, Py-GC/MS was used to detect and identify plastics in environmental samples by first isolating individual particles.[31,32] As such this procedure poses some disadvantages, such as the limited sample mass that must be used, the difficulty in manually transferring the hand-picked particle into a pyrolysis cup, the extensive analysis time, and its destructive nature.[27] This method has been successfully applied to complex environmental samples that have previously endured an extensive cleanup procedure to reduce organic matter and concentrate the plastic material.[33−35] Some studies have reported the identification of different plastic types in environmental samples by selecting specific decomposition products of polymers, their respective indicator ions, and retention times.[33,34,36] Determination of the amount of plastic was only recently accomplished by Okoffo et al.[37] with the identification and quantification of selected plastics in biosolids, after a simple and efficient sample treatment. We aim to: (i) validate a microplastic extraction method when applied to seafood, (ii) optimize identification and quantification of microplastics by Py-GC/MS through a mass-related quantification approach, and (iii) for the first time provide an assessment of the plastic concentration a consumer might be exposed to by consuming seafood
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