Micro Plastics, Massive Problem

Sifting, sorting, finding and thinking: An insight into research on microplastics in the marine environment

- Andrew Chin

We’ve all seen those iconic images of plastic trash draped over reefs, or photos of dead or injured marine animals entangled or struggling in carelessly discarded debris. And who can forget the viral video of mantas swimming through a sea of floating plastic trash? You don’t need to be a genius to see that plastic is having a massive effect on our reefs and marine life.

However, the invasion of microplastics in our ocean, tiny plastic particles smaller than five millimetres, is much harder to see. It’s also hard to trace where these microplastics come from and where they end up, and the impacts these are having on our reefs and oceans.

Nevertheless, microplastics are the focus of a group of dedicated researchers at James Cook University (JCU) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), and microplastic research is more difficult than it sounds.

THE CHALLENGE

Microplastics can be really hard to accurately isolate and count. If you’re looking for them in the environment, you need to strain seawater, sift through sediment, or look inside animals to find these tiny particles and fibres. Imagine a bucket of beach sand, or the slimy, partially digested contents of a fish or turtle’s stomach. How do you properly separate out all the tiny plastic fragments from these contents?