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Levels And Distribution Characteristics of Microplastics In Water And Sediment of A Typical Shallow Lake In Northern China
Summary
Scientists measured microplastic levels in the water and sediment of Baiyangdian Lake, a shallow lake in northern China. They found between 1,000 and 20,000 microplastic particles per cubic meter of water and up to 2,200 particles per kilogram of sediment. Despite pollution control efforts, microplastics remain widespread in this lake ecosystem.
Abstract Microplastics (MPs), generally found in all environment matrices, have become a hot issue in the word. In this study, a typical shallow lake (Baiyangdian) in Northern China was selected, MPs (0.45 μm-5 mm) in different depth of the water and sediment samples were determined. The abundance of MPs in water samples was 1000-20000 items /m 3 (9595 items /m 3 in average) and 400-2200 items /kg (1023 items /kg in average) in sediment samples. Since the pollution abatement measures implemented, MPs visible to eyes are generally eliminated, the detected MPs in this study are mainly μm sizes with no more than 3-5 items being mm size for each collected sample. The main forms of MPs are fibrous and fragmented with components mainly being polyamide (PA), polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). MPs in the water at the garbage transfer station can be ranked as surface water < middle water < bottom water and the sediment contained obviously higher MP fragments indicating the history transferring of garbage can be a main cause of plastic deposition in this place. The content of fibrous MPs in surface water was high, and the fragments were found increasing with the depth of water. The southern area contained less MPs compared with the middle and north part of Baiyangdian lake due to the less human activities. The main sources of MPs in this area are the earlier residents' activities, the running of local plastic factories and the effluent from sewage treatment plant.
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