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Analysis of microplastics in wetland samples from coastal Ghana using the Rose Bengal stain
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Using Rose Bengal stain reduced the number of microplastic misidentifications in environmental samples from Ghana by helping distinguish organic particles from plastic fragments. Improved identification methods reduce errors in microplastic abundance estimates, leading to more accurate assessments of environmental contamination.
The use of optical microscope remains the most commonly used technique for microplastic identification and quantification despite major limitations with misidentifications and biases. We evaluated the use of the 1% Rose Bengal stain in improving the identification of microplastics after a standard microplastic isolation process. The stain discriminated organic materials from potential microplastics with significant differences between numbers observed before (6.65 ± 5.73) and after staining (2.91 ± 3.43). Numbers of potential microplastics observed under the conventional method (without staining) in sediment, feacal matter of shorebirds and the lagoon water were respectively 3.55 g, 0.8 g and 0.13 ml but reduced to 1.85 g of sediment, 0.35 g of feacal material and 0.09 ml of water after staining. Colour composition of potential microplastics under the conventional method was brown (31.0%), black (26.5%), white (20.2%), translucent (16.7%) and red (5.6%). After staining, brown (49,2%), black (30.5%) white (2.3%) and translucent (18.0%) were retained but distinction could not be made between stained organic items and red-coloured microplastics. It was clear that the stain has the potential in improving microplastic identification but requires further investigations.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.