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Microplastics Contamination in the Edible Fish Mozambique Tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) from the Selvampathy Wetland of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
Summary
Microplastics were found in the guts, gills, and muscle tissue of tilapia caught from a wetland in Tamil Nadu, India, with fibres making up 95% of particles and polyethylene the dominant polymer. Because tilapia is a widely eaten fish, these findings raise direct food-safety concerns about microplastic transfer to human consumers, and the study points to urban discharge and agricultural runoff as the likely pollution sources.
The present study investigated the microplastics (MPs) contamination in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, gills and muscle of the Mozambique tilapia, Oreochromis mossambicus sampled from the Selvampathy Lake of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. MPs abundance was found in 10 to 28, 8 to 27, and 4 to 12 particles and their size ranged between 4.4 and 210, 4.6 to 180, and 4.5 to 194 μm in the GI tract, gills and muscle, respectively. MPs were dominantly shaped as fibres (95%) and fragments (5%) with the following colour pattern of blue > black > pink > transparent > and others. Extracted MPs polymer nature were polyethylene (54%), polyamide (38%) and polypropylene (8%). The present study reveals that the edible fish O. mossambicus had MPs that can be transferred to consumers. Moreover, urban discharges, including domestic wastes, agricultural and rainwater runoff, might be possible MPs sources to the studied wetland.