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River plastic retention and export across Europe
Summary
Scientists tracking plastic pollution in European rivers found something surprising: most plastic waste doesn't actually make it out to the ocean like we thought—instead, it gets stuck along riverbanks and in river sediment, acting as a temporary storage zone. This matters because that trapped plastic breaks down into microplastics right where it sits, potentially contaminating soil, drinking water sources, and food chains near where people live, not just in far-off oceans. Identifying which rivers hold and release the most plastic can help target cleanup and prevention efforts where they'll do the most good for both the environment and human exposure to microplastics.
Rivers play a central role in the global distribution of plastic pollution. Despiterecent research showing that the majority of plastic is not transported to sea, mostplastic transport models have not explicitly included plastic retention in rivers. Wepropose a new model to quantify micro- and macroplastic retention on land and inrivers, and export towards the sea. Of the 3.55 Mt year−1 of plastics emitted to theenvironment, only 0.1% of microplastics and 0.5% of macroplastics are exported fromthe river outlet. This results in 16.9 kt year−1 of microplastic and 3.2 kt year−1 export.Rivers act as temporary sinks, retaining 259.1 kt year−1 of microplastics (5.3%) and67.4 kt year−1 of macroplastics (2.5%), while the greatest proportion of plastic remainson land. Although large basin size and high plastic emissions to the environmentcharacterize high absolute micro- and macroplastic retention and export, large basinsize is a weaker predictor for retention and export per capita. By aggregating ranks for plastic export and retention, we provide a new and comprehensive outlook on the most polluting rivers of Europe. This work provides crucial baseline estimates for plastic pollution in light of missing plastic reduction quotas to guide future prioritization and assessment of mitigation actions.