Factors Controlling the Distribution of Microplastic Particles in Benthic Sediment of the Thames River, Canada

Investigations of microplastic abundances in freshwater environments have become more common in the past five years, but few studies concern the factors that control the distribution of microplastics in river systems. We sampled benthic sediment from 34 stations along the Thames River in Ontario, Canada, to determine the influence of land use, grain size, river morphology, and relative amount of organic debris on the distribution of microplastics. Once counted and characterized for shape, color, and size, microplastic abundances were normalized to the results from Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy on randomly selected particles. The results indicate that 78% of the fragments and only 33% of the fibers analyzed were plastic. The normalized microplastic quantities ranged from 6 to 2444 particles per kg of dry weight sediment (kg-1 dw). The greatest number of microplastics were identified in samples of the finest grain sizes and with the greatest amount of organic debris. Although there was no significant difference between microplastic abundances in urban versus rural locations, the average microplastic count for urban samples was greater (269 vs 195 kg-1 dw). In terms of river morphology, samples from along straight courses of the river contained fewer microplastics than samples from inner and outer bends. Overall abundances confirm how rivers contain a significant number of plastic particles and thus may be major conduits of microplastics to lake and ocean basins.