Microplastic awareness in ocean

Plastic has became an inseparable part in modern society and is considerably being produced by manufacture. In the past few decays, the demand of plastic shows a significantly increase from 1.5 million tonnes in 1950 to around 280 millions tonnes in 2011 (PlasticsEurope, 2012). With this up going trend, a large mount of plastic wastes are rapidly released and accumulating in environment which is thought to be a serious environmental problem. Recently, the term “Microplastic” was first introduced in report by British marine biologist Richard Thompson (2004) which used to described microscopic plastic fragment around 20 µm in diameter. This microscopic plastic was considered a potential threaten to environment. However, this early report did not give a specific definition of microplastic until 2009, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) defined microplastic as plastic particles with a maximum of 5mm down to the nanometer scale (Arthur et al. 2009) which can be found in air, soil, oceans and fresh-water.

Due to the durable, lightweight and economical advantages, microplatics are being used in a wild range. For instance, in cosmetics industry, microplastics are being purposefully manufactured and used in face-washes, hand soaps and other personal care products to remove exfoliating ingredients. In this situation, microplastics carried by wast water are unavailable to be removed effectively by sewage treatment and go into environment. US estimated that approximately 100 tons of microplastics are enter the ocean every year (Gouin et al. 2011). On the other hand, large plastic fragments can be physically and biologically decomposed into microplastics via ultraviolet light, machine, creatures. In another word, if we stop the usage and production of plastic items, the number of microplastics will continue increase(Thompson et al. 2009) and nearly impossible to clean up.

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With microplastic continually increase and accumulate in ocean, it might be a threaten to the marine ecosystem. Firstly, recent laboratory experiment verified microplastic concentration is available to reduce algal biomass. Siollema(2016) described 250mg/l plastic concentration with 0.05μm particles will reduce 45% growth of algal, while the particles of 0.5μm shows 10% reduction, at concentration of 25mg/l was observed no significant influence on algal growth. As consequence in marine ecosystem, the reduction of algal growth will cause food intake reduction and reduced available energy.

Besides, microplastic is wildly separated in natural habits and creatures living places. In marine ecosystem, over 250 species are under threaten by microplatsic ingestion(Laist, 1997). As the reported mentioned by Gregory(2009), microplastic can negatively effect on satiation, starvation and physical deterioration which cause the reduction of drowning, fitness, diminished predator avoidance, impairment of feeding ability, the potential transfer of damaging toxicants from seawater and ultimately death. Further more, laboratory study shows microplastic has capacity to accumulate in the digestive cavity and tubules of bivalve mollusc (Brillant and MacDonald, 2000; Browne et al., 2008) and unlikely to be digested or absorbed. As the result, microplastic can block digestive system and reduce food intake by satiation, also predation might bring a pathway for plastic enter the food chain. Since world health organization shows protein from fish, crustaceans and molluscs are being accounted between 13.8% and 16.5% of the animal protein intake of the human population, microplastic might be considered a threaten to human health though diet.

In conclusion, the number of microplastic is continually increase and world widely separated in ocean and almost impassible to stop this up going trend in the nearly future. Many Laboratory studies shows the ingestion and adsorption of microplastics are not only possibly result a harmful effects on organism level but also capable to change population structure in marine ecosystem. However, since microplatsic first introduced and wildly published by literature, our understanding of accumulation and consequences of microplastic contamination is still very limited. As lack of the solution on micropaltsic pollution, we need to modify the way in manufacture to reduce the reliance on plastic items and use natural resources in a effective way(European Commission 2012).