Condition of microplastic garbage in sea surface water at around Kupang and Rote, East Nusa Tenggara Province

Abstract. Hiwari H, Purba NP, Ihsan YN, Yuliadi LPS, Mulyani PG. 2018. Conditions of microplastic gerbage at sea surface water at around Kupang and Rote, East Nusa Tenggara Province. Pros Sem Indom Biodiv 5: 165-171. Microplastic is one of the pollutants due to its size ranging from 10 µm-2 mm able to contaminate marine biota and even spread in marine waters and substrate on the coast. These pollutants are spread in marine waters, one of them is Kupang, Rote, and Savu Sea National Park, East Nusa Tenggara. This study aims to determine the type and distribution of microplastic in the Savu Sea, East Nusa Tenggara Province. The method used consists of three parts, namely field data collection, identification using a microscope and describing the results of identification in the form of abundance, dominance of color and size. Sampling was carried out using bonggo net 300 µm in June 2018. The average microplastic concentration was 1.17 ± 1.09. The highest abundance of microplastic particles was found at Oicina II station with an abundance of 3.20 particles/m3. Some types of microplastic that have been found in several locations for data collection are fragments, fiber, and films. The common microplastic is 50% black color of the identified, which can be used as an initial identification of polyethylene polymers. The most abundance is the type fragment. The microplastic sizes found ranged from 5 µm-2 mm. This suggests that microplastic found has undergone a long process of degradation. Microplastic sources are thought to be plastic waste originating from tourism activities, fishermen, anthropogenic, industries in the Kupang and Rote regions that experience fragmentation in the sea and scattered in the Savu Sea which is driven by sea currents.