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POST EXPEDITION REPORT Field Expedition La Réunion Island, France ATMO-PLASTIC Project
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This field report describes microplastic sample collection from peat bogs on Réunion Island as part of a project using peat archives to reconstruct the history of atmospheric plastic deposition. Peat bogs can preserve a chronological record of airborne pollutants including microplastics, offering a way to track how atmospheric plastic contamination has changed over time.
This report presents all the samples collected within the framework of the ANR Atmo-Plastic and TJF Carbon Islands projects on the territory of Reunion Island. The objective of these projects is to use the peat bogs of Reunion Island as microplastic traps and thus reveal the history of atmospheric contamination by microplastics in the Indian Ocean over the last fifty years. The surveys will also provide a better understanding of the potential of Reunion's peat bogs as environmental archives and carbon stocks thanks to ongoing carbon-14 dating. The additional samples obtained (water, mosses, lichens) will provide a better understanding of atmospheric contamination on the island.
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This review explores the potential of peatlands, the most widespread type of wetlands on Earth, to serve as natural archives for tracking historical atmospheric deposition of micro- and nanoplastics. Researchers found that peatlands, already proven repositories for recording other environmental contaminants over time, show promise as reliable geo-archives for plastic pollution dating back to the start of commercial plastic production around 1950. The study evaluates various sampling and analytical methods to guide future research on reconstructing plastic pollution timelines from peatland cores.
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