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A simple technique to mitigate microplastic pollution and its mobility (via ballast water) in the global ocean
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This commentary proposes a simple and inexpensive modification to ship ballast water treatment systems—adding a multi-layer mesh screening chamber—to reduce the transfer of microplastics across ocean basins. Ballast water exchange is recognized as a significant pathway for spreading microplastic pollution globally.
Ballast water transport is considered as one of the major vectors for dispersal of microplastics around the global oceans. In this commentary, a simple, inexpensive solution has been proposed to reduce microplastic pollution and its mobility via ballast water. A screening chamber (with stainless steel three layered mesh) is proposed to be attached to the existing Ballast Water Treatment Systems (BWTSs) in cargo ships to filter back-flushed sea water from BWTSs. The three layered screens (500, 300 and 100 μm) will not only avoid clogging and easy separation of different size groups of microplastic particles but also help in smooth discharge of water to the sea. This technique is expected to remove a large number of microplastic particles (ranging from 0.0015 to 1020 million) from a single voyage. The proposed chamber may help to collect 0.0003-204 metric tons of particles/day, depending upon the geographical location of ballast intake in the global ocean. These estimations were made by considering a daily turnover of 0.033 billion tonnes of ballast water globally. This proposed screening chamber attached to the existing BWTSs in cargo ships, along with other region-specific ocean cleaning initiatives, will help in mitigating microplastic pollution in the global ocean.
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Researchers detected microplastics in purified ballast water from ships, demonstrating that treated ballast water can still inadvertently transport plastic pollution between different marine environments worldwide. The microplastics were identified as originating from degraded plastic products and showed signs of environmental weathering. The study highlights an overlooked pathway for global microplastic distribution and suggests that current ballast water treatment standards may be insufficient to prevent this form of contamination.
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