Litter on the beach AARHUS UNIVERSITY

… and at sea Marinbiologisk Forum, 25. februar 2015

Department of Bioscience

Uptake and impact on organisms

Marine litter - pollution with plastic debris in our aquatic environments

Jakob Strand Aarhus University Marinbiologisk selskab, 25/2-15

Microplastic

AARHUS UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Humans have through all times set their marks on their surroundings Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

– and also by leaving garbage behind

Today the amounts and how widespread waste is in a global perspective without comparisons to previous times

- a clear marker for the ANTHROPOCENE age

AARHUS UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

AARHUS UNIVERSITY Litter in the sea – is it really an environmental problem ? DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

Huge amounts have during the last century been delivered to the sea - and litter is today regarded as a global pollution problem. Marine litter consist mainly of different persistent plastic materials, but also of other types of man-made solid waste, i.e. metal, glass, rubber, textiles, paper and machined wood. both as large items and tiny microscopic particles: - Washed ashore and deposited on the coasts, - Floating in water column in surface and deeper waters,

- Deposited on the sea floor and into sediments, - Accumulated in marine organisms.

Environmental concerns: - Aesthetically undesirable in ”clean” nature - Transfer into food webs and harmful impact on marine organisms. - Source (and vector) to toxic pollutants in the sea.

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

PLASTIC in the environment is not just one thing DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

February 25, 2015

Jakob Strand

– but as group does it consist of many types of materials and constituents ABS-plast Akrylplast Bioplast

Teflon

EPS-plast Epoxyplast

Softeners

Vinylester Ureaplast

Super Absorbent Polymer

EVA-plast

Pigments Antibacterial agents

Blowing Agents Impact Modifiers

Polyvinylchlorid

MATERIALS EPS-plast4’åø3oli8 /POLYMERS HDPE-plast Polystyrene

Antistatic agents Polyurethan Polytetrafluorethylen

Fillers/Extenders

EPS-plast ADDITIVES

UV-stabilizators Fragrances Polystyren These aspects should also be Polyethersulfon Melamin-plast Heat-Stabilisators Lubricants considered during research, Neopren Polycarbonat Antioxidants Co-polymerer Polyester risk/impact assessments Nylon Polyethylen Polyamid and communication Flame retardants PET-plast on fate and impact of plastic Structure of particles Size of particles in the environment Density

LDPE-plast

Amounts and EPS-plast concentrations

Environmental factors

Leakage of additives

Fragmentation/degradation/persistence Absorption of contaminants from surroundings

AARHUS UNIVERSITY The main sources to litter in the sea DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Land-based sources: - Recreational activities at e.g. shorelines, - Poor waste handling at e.g. dumpsites, in cities and agriculture, - Pellet losses during production and transport, - Airborne litter and dust, - Freshwater run-off and effluents and rivers, - Extreme weather events, e.g. floodings and hurricanes

and from sea-based sources: - e.g. ship traffic, fishery, recreational activities

and long-range transport with ocean currents - even between continents - and also to the deep sea.

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

Skagerrak - an important deposition area for the North sea DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

Nordic monitoring of beached litter have shown that the largest amounts generally occur at the Swedish and Danish west coasts

OSPAR QSR 2000 OSPAR + MARLIN data 2002 - 2012

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

Beach litter – some Nordic data for amounts and composition DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

Contribution of plastic/polystyrene items => Plastic is transported longer ? NO3 Arctic (97%) NO6 North Atlantic (88%) NO2 NO4 Eastern North Sea (65%) Skagerrak (76%) Baltic Sea (62%)

Plastic debris is the dominating contributor to beach litter

DK2

NO7 NO5

DK4

SE9 SE1

DK1

Based on OSPAR + MARLIN data 2002 – 2012, where MARLIN data has been translated to the general OSPAR categories using the EU master list

AARHUS UNIVERSITY Some global estimates for marine litter in the sea DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

Land-based inputs of plastic waste from land into the ocean: 4.8 - 12.7 million tons per year out of 275 million tons of plastic waste generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010 (Jambeck et al. 2015), i.e. 2-5% loss

Floating plastic in sea surface (>330µm): 5.25 trillion particles weighing 268,940 tons (Eriksen et al. 2014) or 6.600 – 35.500 tons (Cozar et al. 2014) Gyres as accumulation zones

Size distribution of plastic debris on the ocean surface shows a peak in abundance of fragments around 2 mm and a pronounced gap below 1 mm.

Nonaccumulation zone (blue boxes), Outer accumulation zone (green boxes), Inner accumulation zone (red boxes).

But ...AARHUS are UNIVERSITY the litter observed in the sea and washed ashore only the top of the iceberg ? DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Jakob Strand

February 25, 2015

Where does the huge amounts of litter go as times go by ?

Sinking, Deposition, Fragmentation, Degradation …

AARHUS UNIVERSITY

Mikroplastic – a ”new” issue

DEPARTMENT OF BIOSCIENCE

Microscopic particles; 40 µm) in water and organisms at 2 sites at Copenhagen. Mean densities: 0.3 – 2.5 particles per individual (analysed 2-3 pools per species).

Results indicated a high BioAccumulation Factor (BAF) for microplastics in blue mussels: BAF = 25000 - 40000

Results from fra student project (Agersnap 2013)