Just One Word, Plastics!

UMCEES,  New Study Tracks Microplastics in Watershed

Scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are embarking on a research project that will lay the foundation for plastic research in the Chesapeake Bay. The two-year NOAA Marine Debris Program funded project begins in January and will track how microplastics move through the Choptank River watershed on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The project studies the fate and transport of microplastics, providing a baseline of understanding of what kind of plastics exist in the waterway and how they move through coastal systems, particularly how marsh wetlands and underwater grasses impact their flow and where they end up during different seasons throughout the year.

“A lot of attention is paid to the giant garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean, but those plastics came from somewhere. We have to understand where they are coming from and what happens to them before they get to the ocean,” said Associate Professor Jamie Pierson. “How microplastics transit through a system like the Choptank and its features—marshes, SAV beds, wetlands—might affect transport from source to open water.”

 

Studies have estimated that up to 95% of the waste that accumulates on shorelines, the sea surface, and the seafloor is plastic. To date, most published studies on plastic debris have focused on marine ecosystems and not estuaries, rivers, or freshwater systems. Even fewer studies have focused on the interaction of coastal wetlands, such as underwater grasses or marshlands, and the accumulation of microplastics.

Plastic debris occurs in different sizes and washes up on beaches, floats on the water surface, and sinks to the water's floor. Large pieces of debris are most obvious, but increasing attention has been paid to microplastics, which are less than 5 millimeters in size, or smaller than a pencil eraser. These smaller particles have specific and important human and ecological health implications because they can easily degrade and enter the food chain where they are ingested by the creatures at the base of the food chain. 

I keep seeing food chains invoked as possible problems with plastics, but I never see any results of studies suggesting this, or even evidence that they are being carried out. There's a reason for this. They know they wouldn't be able to find an effect, and they don't want the scam busted.

The project will develop and model scenarios to determine which factors and mitigation strategies could have the greatest impact on reducing marine debris in riverine environments. All of the data gathered will be made available to stakeholders and policymakers from agencies such as NOAA and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, as well as local agencies and NGOs to be applied to coastal wetland systems, locally and globally.

Far be it from be to criticize someone building a career studying a pollutant with next to no environmental impacts, but when we wanted something without biological effect in the laboratory, we usually chose plastic (though, glass is good too). Large plastics, with a few exceptions, are mostly an aesthetic problem. I still want to know who stuck the straw up the turtles noses. Microplastics are the natural results of the world recycling plastics in it's own inefficient manner and almost certainly have negligible effects on the Bay's organisms. 

The Wombat is back in the saddle with Rule 5 Sunday: Yvette Mimieux, RIP.