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Cited by 471

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Examination of the ocean as a source for atmospheric microplastics

Open access
Allen, Steve, Allen, Deonie, Moss, Kerry, Le Roux, Gaël, Phoenix, Vernon R., Sonke, Jeroen E.·2020·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0232746
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Abstract

Global plastic litter pollution has been increasing alongside demand since plastic products gained commercial popularity in the 1930's. Current plastic pollutant research has generally assumed that once plastics enter the ocean they are there to stay, retained permanently within the ocean currents, biota or sediment until eventual deposition on the sea floor or become washed up onto the beach. In contrast to this, we suggest it appears that some plastic particles could be leaving the sea and entering the atmosphere along with sea salt, bacteria, virus' and algae. This occurs via the process of bubble burst ejection and wave action, for example from strong wind or sea state turbulence. In this manuscript we review evidence from the existing literature which is relevant to this theory and follow this with a pilot study which analyses microplastics (MP) in sea spray. Here we show first evidence of MP particles, analysed by μRaman, in marine boundary layer air samples on the French Atlantic coast during both onshore (average of 2.9MP/m3) and offshore (average of 9.6MP/m3) winds. Notably, during sampling, the convergence of sea breeze meant our samples were dominated by sea spray, increasing our capacity to sample MPs if they were released from the sea. Our results indicate a potential for MPs to be released from the marine environment into the atmosphere by sea-spray giving a globally extrapolated figure of 136000 ton/yr blowing on shore.

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Cited by

Metadata

Authors
Allen, S., Allen, D., Moss, K., Le Roux, G., Phoenix, V. R., & Sonke, J. E.
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2020-05-12
Volume
15
Issue
5
Pages
e0232746
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0232746
OpenAlex
W3024272360
Cited by
471
References
8
FWCI
12.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
gold
Licence
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (vor)
Funders
  • FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions (FP7/2007-2013)
  • CNRS (ANR-15-CE01-0008, ANR-11-LABX0010)
  • Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2019-306)

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