An airborne remote sensing case study of synthetic hydrocarbon detection using short wave infrared absorption features identified from marine-harvested macro- and microplastics

The abundance and distribution of plastic debris in natural waters is largely unknown due to limited comprehensive monitoring. Here, optical properties of dry and wet marine-harvested plastic debris were quantified to explore the feasibility of plastic debris optical remote sensing in the natural environment. We measured the spectral reflectance of microplastics (< 5 mm) from the North Atlantic Ocean, macroplastics (> 5 mm) washed ashore along the USA west coast and virgin plastic pellets over a wavelength range from 350 to 2500 nm. Compared to the spectral variability of multi-colored dry macroplastics, the measured dry marine-harvested microplastic reflectance spectra could be represented as a single bulk average spectrum with notable absorption features at ~ 931, 1215, 1417 and 1732 nm. The wet marine-harvested microplastics had similar spectral features to the dry microplastics but the magnitude was lower over the measured spectrum. When spectrally matched to the reference library of typical dry virgin pellets, the mean dry marine-harvested microplastics reflectance had moderate similarities to low-density polyethylene, polyethylene terephthalate, polypropylene and polymethyl methacrylate. This composition was consistent with the subset sampled with the Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer and what has been reported globally. The absorption features at 1215 and 1732 nm were observable through an intervening atmosphere and used to map the distributions of synthetic hydrocarbons at a landfill and on man-made structures from airborne visible-infrared imaging spectrometer (AVIRIS) imagery, indicating the potential to remotely sense dry washed ashore and land-origin plastics. These same absorption features were identifiable on wet marine-harvested microplastics, but the ability to conduct remote sensing of microplastics at the ocean surface layer will require more detailed radiative transfer analysis and development of high signal-to-noise sensors. The spectral measurements presented here provide a foundation for such advances towards remote detection of plastics from various platforms.