Читать книгу Plastic and Microplastic in the Environment - Группа авторов - Страница 38

Freshwater plastic pollution is an emerging hazard. To overcome this global challenge, reliable data on river plastic transport and accumulation is key. Approximately 4 million tons of plastic waste enters the oceans via rivers every year. River health is intrinsically linked to marine health; there is no separating the two. Why are people more concerned about plastic in the ocean than they are about plastic in rivers? Most ocean plastic ‘litter’ originates on land, with major rivers providing important source‐to‐sink pathways into the ocean. How effectively the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean can be resolved is dependent on establishing effective methods for surveying, quantifying, and modeling pollution pathways on land and examining how these can vary through time. Because it will be a herculean task to clean up the plastic debris that have already filled up the oceans, we must take necessary steps and precautions to reduce the amount of plastic entering the marine environment. To prevent the plastic debris from entering the sea, the path taken by the plastic has to be elucidated so that immediate and efficient steps can be taken.

To date, there is very little available data on the quantification and characterization of riverine MPs. As the impact of plastic pollution increases with decreasing particle size, the investigation of MPs (particles <5 mm) is particularly relevant. MPs particles, ranging from microns to millimeters in size, pose a significant risk to natural ecosystems and habitats. However, despite the potential ecological impacts from MPs pollution, the ability to accurately predict MP transport by environmental flows (e.g. in rivers, estuaries, and coastal currents) is limited. It is important to understand how they are transported to predict their dispersion and behavior, and ultimately understand their impact on ecological and human health. The extensive quantification of major rivers as sources of MPs pollution is yet to be established, and extensive research is needed to focus on transport pathways, fluxes, and fate of this emerging pollutant to understand the threat it poses to human health and ecosystems across the world (Alimi et al. 2018; Browne 2015; de Souza Machado et al. 2018; Horton et al. 2017; Horton and Dixon 2018; Nizzetto et al. 2016; Wagner et al. 2014).