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Challenges on environmental regulation and monitoring of microplastics: the case of the State of São Paulo (Brazil)
Summary
Researchers examined the challenges of developing environmental regulation and standardized monitoring protocols for microplastics in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, highlighting the need for harmonized collection, analysis, and reporting procedures to enable long-term comparable monitoring programs.
The issue of microplastics (MP) impacts multiple sectors and stakeholders, posing significant challenges for environmental regulation. Effective interaction between scientists and regulatory authorities is essential to develop public policies grounded in scientific evidence. One critical effort is the standardization of procedures for collecting, analyzing, and reporting results in MP samples to enable long-term monitoring programs to produce reproducible and comparable data. In Brazil, the HydroPoll Network is a platform for this type of initiative, in which the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp) and the Environmental Company of the State of São Paulo (Cetesb) develop a collaborative project for the future inclusion of MP assessment in the Coastal Water Quality Monitoring Program, a state action covering the entire coast of São Paulo and has been carried out for more than 10 years by Cetesb. In this collaboration, 21 sampling areas along the coast for semi-annual monitoring of surface waters and marine sediments were considered. Dozens of samples were collected in some of them selected taken into account different environmental conditions, and submitted to different procedures for comparisons. The results indicate procedures to be followed or avoided to define the best methodological routes for the analysis of MPs in the context of environmental monitoring conducted by a state agency. Findings include insights on collection strategies (single samples vs. triplicates), equipment used (collecting nets), sample homogenization, results (number of particles and volume of particles), and chemical characterization techniques. This initiative aims to standardize procedures involving environmental regulatory bodies and decision-makers, which are an important step to improve the reproducibility and comparability of results on MPs. Furthermore, they may be useful as a reference for the formulation of public policies to control MP pollution in Brazilian aquatic environments and serve as an example of fruitful interaction between scientists and public environmental managers. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559432/document