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Organic additive release from plastic to seawater is lower under deep-sea conditions
Summary
Researchers found that high underwater pressure in the deep sea slows the leaching of heavy chemical additives (like phthalates) from plastic debris, but deep-sea microbes actually accelerate additive release compared to abiotic conditions alone. This means plastic sinking through the ocean continuously releases chemical pollutants, with microbial activity playing a larger role in additive contamination than pressure alone.
Plastic garbage patches at the ocean surface are symptomatic of a wider pollution affecting the whole marine environment. Sinking of plastic debris increasingly appears to be an important process in the global fate of plastic in the ocean. However, there is insufficient knowledge about the processes affecting plastic distributions and degradation and how this influences the release of additives under varying environmental conditions, especially in deep-sea environments. Here we show that in abiotic conditions increasing hydrostatic pressure inhibits the leaching of the heaviest organic additives such as tris(2-ethylhexyl) phosphate and diisononyl phthalate from polyethylene and polyvinylchloride materials, whereas deep-sea and surface marine prokaryotes promote the release of all targeted additives (phthalates, bisphenols, organophosphate esters). This study provides empirical evidences for more efficient additive release at the ocean surface than in deep seawater, where the major plastic burden is supposed to transit through before reaching the sediment compartment.