Citizen Scientists Reveal High Concentrations of Microplastics on Remote Arctic Beaches
Key Highlights :
The global production of plastic has resulted in the ubiquitous presence of tiny plastic fragments, and scientists fear that ocean currents will cause plastic to accumulate in the Arctic, damaging its delicate ecosystems. With limited knowledge of the scale and type of plastic pollution in the Arctic, researchers have turned to citizen scientists—tourists on holiday cruises—to help them collect samples and fill in the gaps.
A research team from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, has recently published a study in Frontiers in Environmental Science which details the findings of their citizen science project. The Svalbard archipelago, Europe's northernmost landmass, was chosen as the sampling site due to its remoteness and vulnerability to microplastics transported by ocean currents.
Four tourist cruises visiting Svalbard between 2016 and 2022 collected sediment samples, and in some cases surveyed macroplastic debris (between 2.5 and 10 cm in size) for a different study. The samples were dried out, weighed, and measured, and each sample was filtered to capture particles 1 mm or larger in size.
The scientists found that microplastics of the size they were searching for were not widespread, but were very concentrated: the estimated overall level of plastic pollution was comparable to areas formerly believed to be much more polluted than Arctic beaches. Two specific sources of plastic pollution were identified in their samples: polypropylene fibers that likely formed part of a fishing net, and polyester-epoxide particles that probably came from a ship's color coating or equipment.
The netting appeared to have fragmented very quickly due to the conditions on the beach: repeated freeze cycles, high humidity from fog, and up to 24 hours of sunlight a day in summer. If this rapid fragmentation occurs at other locations, it could introduce tiny, elusive microplastics into the environment very quickly.
The authors note that more sampling is needed in the Arctic, in more places and in more regular time intervals, to monitor the situation. They also caution that they only analyzed microplastics particles larger than 1 mm, and that their previous studies on Arctic water, ice, and sediment samples have shown that more than 80% of the particles were much smaller.
The findings of this study demonstrate the effectiveness of citizen science initiatives in gathering data, even in remote Arctic locations. The data collected by the citizen scientists has provided valuable insight into the scale and type of plastic pollution in the Arctic, and has highlighted the need for further research into the rapid fragmentation of plastic debris and its potential to introduce tiny, elusive microplastics into the environment.
