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Modelling the oral uptake of chemicals : the role of plastic, passive diffusion and transport proteins
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Researchers modeled how chemicals from plastic debris are taken up when marine organisms ingest plastic, collecting partition coefficients to estimate how well different plastics concentrate various organic pollutants. The model helps assess whether ingesting plastic marine debris significantly increases an organism's exposure to toxic chemicals compared to simply living in contaminated water.
Oceans, seas and coastal areas are threatened by increasing amounts of plastic waste, and it has been shown that marine species ingest the plastic debris.There are concerns that ingestion of plastic debris might pose an additional exposure to persistent organic pollutants or plastic additives contained in the plastic.In order to assess this exposure, it is of crucial importance to estimate the contaminant concentration in the plastic, and to understand whether there are differences between the plastic types.We collected plastic water partition coefficients of various PCB congeners and other chlorinated chemicals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), brominated diphenyl ethers (BDE), alkanes, organophosphorous pesticides and carbamates, and other organic chemicals for seven plastic types: polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), high density, low density and ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (LDPE, HDPE and UHMWPE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).Most data was available for PDMS (1060), followed by LDPE (220), and much less for the remaining plastics (73).Regression models were developed for the LDPE and PDMS, and the partitioning of the chemicals was compared to the remaining plastics.The data available support previous findings that partitioning of chemicals follows the order of LDPE HDPE PP > PVC PS, and the differences were quantified where possible.
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Researchers assessed the relative importance of microplastics as a pathway for transferring hydrophobic organic chemicals to marine life. The study suggests that while microplastics can carry high concentrations of contaminants, factors like gut surfactants, pH, and temperature influence desorption rates, and modeling indicates other exposure routes may be more significant in natural environments.
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Researchers reviewed mathematical models used to predict whether swallowing microplastics causes aquatic animals to absorb more toxic chemicals, finding that the effect depends on whether contaminants are more concentrated in the plastic or in the animal's tissues. In real-world conditions where animals are already exposed to contaminants, microplastics may actually pull chemicals out of tissues as often as they add them, complicating the assumption that microplastic ingestion always increases contamination.
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Researchers developed a model to evaluate whether microplastic acts as a meaningful carrier of persistent organic pollutants to aquatic organisms. The analysis suggests that in both laboratory and open marine systems, microplastic ingestion is more likely to slightly decrease bioaccumulation of pollutants rather than increase it, and the differences are too small to be relevant for risk assessment.
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