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Monitoring of meso and microplastic debris in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) during a moon cycle
Marine Pollution Bulletin xxx (xxxx) xxxx
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Monitoring of meso and microplastic debris in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) during a moon cycle María González-Hernándeza, Cintia Hernández-Sánchezb,c, Javier González-Sálamoa,c, ⁎ Jessica López-Dariasa, Javier Hernández-Borgesa,c, a Departamento de Química, Unidad Departamental de Química Analítica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL). Avda. Astrofísico Fco. Sánchez, s/n°. 38206, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain b Departamento de Obstetricia y Ginecología, Pediatría, Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Toxicología, Medicina Forense y Legal y Parasitología, Área de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Escuela Politécnica Superior de Ingeniería, Sección de Náutica, Máquinas y Radioelectrónica Naval, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Vía Auxiliar Paso Alto, n° 2 38001, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain c Instituto Universitario de Enfermedades Tropicales y Salud Pública de Canarias, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Avda. Astrofísico Fco. Sánchez, s/n°. 38206, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Marine debris Mesoplastics Microplastics Tenerife Canary Islands Infrared spectroscopy
The occurrence and composition of meso (5–25 mm) and microplastics (1–5 mm) in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) was monitored during a complete moon cycle on the different moon phases between 17th June and 16thJuly 2019. A total of 10 points were sampled each day finding an average content of mesoplastics of 18 g/m2 (0.36 g/L) and of microplastics of 13 g/m2 (1277 items/m2 or 1.6 g/L). Polypropylene and polyethylene accounted for 19% and 76% of the total, respectively. Tar was also found in the 1–5 mm fraction (2% of the total). Among the particles found, 83% were fragments, 11% pellets, 4% fibres and 2% films. The obtained results revealed that microplastic presence could not be related in this case with the tides but with the orientation and strength/speed of the wind.
1. Introduction
plastics are released into the environment with a microscopic size (this is the case of their use in many hygiene products, for example) they are called “primary microplastics”, while “secondary microplastics” are those obtained as a result of the breakage of plastics of much bigger size. As a result, substantial quantities of plastic particles of small size are already present in the whole marine ecosystem (Auta et al., 2017; Constant et al., 2019; Kazour et al., 2019) and many of them are transported great distances (Nuelle et al., 2014). The directions of the wind and ocean currents are important factors that affect the level of plastics contamination of the coast, specially beaches. Understanding the presence and distribution of microplastics is fundamental to evaluate the ecological risks that they cause and to identify the ways of degradation of microplastics (Kanhai et al., 2017). In an attempt to protect more effectively the marine environment across Europe, the EU implemented the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) on June 2008 (Directive 2008/56/EC, 2008). This Directive clearly aims to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of the EU's marine waters by 2020 and to protect the resource support upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend. For
Nowadays, it is clear that humanity is facing a very important environmental problem associated with the extremely high production and consumption of plastics in the world (around 348 million tons were produced in 2017 (“Plastics-The facts, 2018)). The fact that plastics can be easily and cheaply produced and that they have properties that allow to manufacture nearly any desired plastic object with a high long-term resistance, have surely contributed to their popularity, but also to their curse from the environmental point of view, especially in the oceans (Zhang et al., 2019). When plastics reach marine waters, they can break into smaller pieces: mesoplastics (size in the range 5–25 mm), microplastics (1–5 mm), mini-microplastics (1 mm-1 μm) and/or nanoplastics (size < 1 μm) (Crawford et al., 2017). Such breakage is a result of the action of thermo-oxidative, photo-oxidative, biological, atmospheric oxidation and hydrolytic degradation processes as well as mechanical degradation (abrasions, bending, impacts, etc.), which is, together with photo-oxidation, the most important (Crawford et al., 2017). When
⁎ Corresponding author at: Departamento de Química, Unidad Departamental de Química Analítica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL). Avda. Astrofísico Fco. Sánchez, s/n°. 38206, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Hernández-Borges).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110757 Received 6 October 2019; Received in revised form 17 November 2019; Accepted 18 November 2019 0025-326X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: María González-Hernández, et al., Marine Pollution Bulletin, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110757
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that purpose, each member state should develop a strategy for its marine waters. In Spain, the MSFD was transposed by law 41/2010 (Ley 41/2010, de 29 de diciembre, de protección del medio marino, 2010), in which the Spanish coasts were divided in 5 regions, being one of them the Canary Islands. Since then, the Spanish Government has initiated several actions to monitor the presence of marine litter, including microplastics, on beaches (BM-6 program) (CEDEX, 2018, 2017, 2016; Directive 2008/56/EC, 2008). As part of such monitoring program, and since autumn 2016, Famara beach (located at Lanzarote, Canary Islands) has been monitored twice a year (finding important amounts of microplastics) though the obtained results are still insufficient to establish the GES of the region as the latest report has indicated (Instituto Español de Oceanografía, 2012). Apart from these studies, few others have been published concerning the presence of microplastics in the same beach (Baztan et al., 2014) or other ones located in different islands like Fuerteventura (Baztan et al., 2014), Gran Canaria (Herrera et al., 2018) or Tenerife (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019), which corroborate that the Canary Islands archipelago is an area of microplastics and tar accumulation from the open North Atlantic Ocean caused by the Canary Current which has a southward flow. In most cases, a single sampling was developed (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019; Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019) and only in one of them an annual study was carried out with a sampling periodicity of two weeks (Herrera et al., 2018). In one of those previous works, which was developed by our group (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019), we studied for the first time the presence of microplastics in six beaches from Tenerife (Canary Islands) finding high amounts of them in Playa Grande, in the municipality of Arico (2971 items/m2, 99 g/m2 and 2.0 g/L). As pointed in our previous study, such high presence of microplastics clearly suggested the need of carrying out more monitoring programs for further studies. It should also be highlighted, that this beach has been particularly popular in local and national media during the last year as a result of the increasingly arrival of macro, meso and microplastics (in general of marine litter) which has made necessary a periodical cleaning of the beach by volunteers and non-governmental associations. Microplastics abundance in the coastal zones is likely to vary not only over space but also over time, that is why the sampling period and spatial distribution are of special concern. Regarding the periodicity of the sampling, many studies frequently develop a single sampling (Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019) while others develop a longerterm evaluation, in many cases once a month (Herrera et al., 2018). In order to accomplish this, it is important to know how the abundance of microplastics varies on small temporal scales, which can also differ from one place to another, as a result of the local variation in hydrological processes; of particular interest is also the monitoring during a moon cycle, in order to study the possible influence of the tides. To the best of our knowledge, microplastic monitoring during a complete moon cycle has only been developed in two occasions (Lima et al., 2016; Ramos and Pessoa, 2019). Lima et al. (Lima et al., 2016), for example, studied the moon influence on the distribution of fish larvae, zooplankton and also plastic debris in mangrove creeks of the Goiana Estuary in Brazil. ANOVA showed that the microplastic content did not differ significantly among moon phases. In another study developed by Ramos et al. (Ramos and Pessoa, 2019), authors examined the composition and the spatial/tidal changes of marine debris caught with a fishing net during a fishery survey in two different areas of a sand beach at the northeast of Brazil during two moon cycles. Significant differences between areas and tides were registered for plastic, metal and cloth. In an attempt to study in depth the abundance changes of meso and microplastics among space and tides during a short time scale sampling in Playa Grande (Tenerife), we developed an exhaustive study during a complete moon cycle, sampling the days of full moon, third quarter, new moon, first quarter and full moon again, during June–July 2019. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first study of
Table 1 Data of the sampled beach and sampling days. Beach name
Playa Grande
Municipality Sampling date
Arico (Tenerife) 06/17/19 (full Moon); 06/26/19 (third quarter); 07/01/19 (new moon); 07/09/19 (first quarter); 07/16/19 (full moon) N 28° 9′ 9.068″ O 16° 25′ 54.443″ 120 m Low/medium Northeast Fine (black) Sporadic days (developed by volunteers) 10
Coordinates Total length Touristic impact Orientation Sand type Cleaning Number of sampling points per day
these characteristics (moon cycle study) in which meso and microplastic debris are monitored in a beach and one of the very few studies in which microplastic monitoring has been developed during a whole moon cycle. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Study area and field work Playa Grande beach was sampled during a complete moon cycle between 17th June and 16th July 2019 following the indications of the Guidance on Monitoring of Marine Litter in European Seas (Galgani et al., 2013). Table 1 shows the characteristics of the beach as well as the sampling dates. Fig. 1 shows a photograph of the location of the beach and of the locations of the sampling points. Sampling was developed at the high tide line and with a separation of approximately 10 m between each point, following the same procedure as in our previous work (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019). Briefly, a wooden frame of 50 × 50 cm was used to delimitate the sampled sand fraction. A stainless-steel vessel was used to collect the sand down to 5 cm deep, which was sieved in-situ using 1- and 5-mm stainless-steel circular sieves of 20 cm of diameter (VWR® International). The collected fraction in each sieve was introduced in glass bottles and/or Petri dishes (VWR® International) and taken to the laboratory for further analyses. 2.2. Separation of microplastics by flotation Collected microplastics were separated by density using a saturated NaCl (Panreac Química) solution (the approximate density of the solution was 1.2 kg/L). Afterwards, the floating material was passed through a paper filter using a Bücher funnel. The filtrate was then washed with deionized water and air dried. Non-plastic materials such as pieces of algae, tar, wood, etc. were then removed while plastics were weighted (Sartorius Entris 224I-1S analytical balance with a maximum weighting capacity of 220 g and 0.1 mg of resolution). The collected microplastics were counted and visually characterized by size and shape. Concerning mesoplastics, they were also introduced in the NaCl solution to verify their flotation, cleaned with deionized water, dried and also weighted. 2.3. Infrared analysis For infrared (IR) measurements the same instrumentation (a Fourier Transform IR (FTIR) spectrometer - Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR)-, Bruker IFS 66/S equipped with a high-intensity global source, KBr beamsplitter and a deuterium triglycine sulphate (DTGS) detector) and the same procedure of our previous work was used (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019). See Supplementary Material for more information. 2
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Atlanc Ocean Playa Grande
Canary Islands (Tenerife)
Africa
Fig. 1. Location of the Canary Islands and of the beach studied in this work (Playa Grande), as well as the satellite view of the beach showing the location of the sampling points.
3. Results and discussion
southwest in the islands, and which causes north-facing beaches to be involved in cross-border contamination episodes, in particular, lowdensity marine debris that float on the sea as previous works have shown (Baztan et al., 2014; Herrera et al., 2018). Tables 1S–5S and Tables 6S–10S of the Supplementary Material show the results of the six days sampling of meso and microplastics, respectively, after developing the experimental procedure indicated in the Experimental Section of this work and which included an in situ sieving of the sand (1 and 5 mm sieves) and a later flotation of the materials using a NaCl saturated solution (the averages correspond with the average of the 10 sampling points taken each sampling day); while Tables 2 and 3 compile the total results obtained for both meso and microplastics. Once dried, visual separation of tar, pieces of wood, algae, pumites, etc. was developed before the final weighting of the samples. As can be seen in the tables, and concerning the total amount of mesoplastics found, a total weight of nearly 227 g of mesoplastics (size in the range 5–25 mm) were obtained, which represents and average of 18 g/m2 or 0.36 g/L, being the maximum amount of mesoplastics found 63 ± 26 g/m2 or 1.3 ± 0.5 g/L, which were collected on the last sampling day (full moon), and the lowest amount, 2.3 ± 1.0 g/m2 or 0.047 ± 0.019 g/L, which were gathered on the
3.1. Sampling and meso/microplastics separation As previously indicated, Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain), has a northeast orientation and receives important amounts of marine litter daily. To monitor the short-term arrival of meso and microplastics, we developed this study during a complete moon cycle, from mid-June to mid-July, since, according to official historic data (2017–2018, see Figs. 1S and 2S of the Supplementary Material) this is one of the periods of the year with the highest winds and wave heights. As it can also be seen in those figures, during nearly 85% of the whole year the wind has also a northeast direction, which is the same as the orientation of the beach. Indeed, from January to August 2019, July has been the month with the highest wave heights being the wind pattern also nearly the same as in previous years (see Fig. 3S of the Supplementary Material). Both facts (a northeast wind direction nearly all over the year and the northeast orientation of the beach) are the perfect combination for the high arrival of marine debris and, consequently, meso and microplastics. This is produced by the current of the Canaries, which circulates from north-northeast to south3
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Table 2 Amount of mesoplastics (5–25 mm) including their confidence intervals (95% of probability) found in Playa Grande during a moon cycle (5 sampling days). Mesoplastics
Total weight of mesoplastics (g)* g/m2 g/L
Total content
Maximum (per sampling day)
Minimum (per sampling day)
Average of 5 days
226.91 – –
157.13 ± 6.42 63 ± 26 1.3 ± 0.5
5.85 ± 0.24 2.3 ± 1.0 0.047 ± 0.019
45.38 (63.43**) 18 (25**) 0.36 (0.51**)
*Mesoplastics were weighted using a precision balance but their weight was adjusted to two decimals. **Standard deviation. Table 3 Amount of microplastics (1–5 mm) including their confidence intervals (95% of probability) found in Playa Grande during a moon cycle (5 sampling days). Microplastics
Number of fragments detected Total weight of microplastics (g)* Items/m2 g/m2 g/L
Total content
Maximum (per sampling day)
Minimum (per sampling day)
Average of 5 days
15,958 164.55 – – –
6427 92.09 2571 ± 597 36 ± 18 0.74 ± 0.37
472 2.30 189 ± 66 0.92 ± 0.51 0.018 ± 0.010
3192 32.91 1277 (1055**) 13 (14**) 1.6 (2.8**)
*Microplastics were weighted using a precision balance but their weight was adjusted to two decimals. **Standard deviation.
Microplastic amount
120
W eig h t (g )
100 80 60
40 20 0
Microplastic particles
Nu mb er o f p art icles
7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0
Fig. 2. Microplastic amount and number of microplastic particles found in Playa Grande during a moon cycle (June–July 2019).
4
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06/17/2019
06/26/2019
5%
07/01/2019 3%
4%
96%
95%
07/09/2019
97%
07/16/2019 1%
3%
Microplascs Tar 99%
97%
Fig. 3. Percentage of microplastics and tar collected in Playa Grande after flotation separation in a NaCl saturated solution.
06/17/2019 5%
2%
06/26/2019
5%
4%
1%
07/01/2019
4%
3%
2% 1%
7%
8%
13%
75%
83%
07/09/2019 4%
2% 0%
87%
07/16/2019 1%
2%
3%
Total
0%
4%
2%
0%
11%
24%
72% 83%
92%
Pellet
Fragment
Fibre
Film
Foam
Fig. 4. Results obtained after the visual classification of the microplastics collected at Playa Grande following the classification of Crawford et al. (Crawford et al., 2017).
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06/17/2019
06/26/2019
3%
7%
07/01/2019 12%
13%
33%
57% 88%
87%
07/09/2019 3%
14%
07/16/2019
Total 4% 1%
10%
19%
27%
73% 76%
73%
PS
PP
PE
Non-idenfied
Fig. 5. Results obtained after chemical classification of the particles collected at Playa Grande and submitted to flotation in a saturated NaCl solution. PP: polypropylene; PE: polyethylene; PS: polystyrene.
area suggested that tar litter may come from the fragmentation of old oil spills accumulated on rocks or from ships that release their bunker oil, being still frequent to find them in some of the beaches (ÁlvarezHernández et al., 2019; Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019; Herrera et al., 2018).
second sampling day (third quarter moon). Regarding the microplastic fraction (1–5 mm), nearly 165 g of microplastics were collected during the five sampling days, which accounted for nearly 16,000 particles. The average concentration found in the five days was 1277 items/m2 (13 g/m2 or 1.6 g/L). The maximum concentration, a total of 2571 ± 597 items/m2 (12 ± 2 g/m2 or 0.23 ± 0.04 g/L) were found on the fourth day (first quarter) while the lowest concentration was 189 ± 66 items/m2 (0.92 ± 0.51 g/m2 or 0.018 ± 0.010 g/L). Fig. 2 shows total amount (g) of microplastics as well as the number of items found each sampling day related with the moon phase, including their confidence intervals. As can be seen, there is an important variability between each sampling day. One-way ANOVA was performed to determine whether the meso and microplastic mean densities vary with the different moon phases. Significant differences (p < 0.01) were found for both meso and microplastics content in all the five days. However, such variation may not be related with the tide, as a result of the fact that no higher amounts were found during both full moon and new moon days. In fact, important differences in the content of meso and microplastics were found between the first and the last full moon which might be explained observing the wind pattern and speed. During the first sampling day (full moon) the mean speed of the wind was 9 km/h, while the rest of the sampling days were 27, 45, 41 and 50 km/h, respectively. During all those days (in fact during the whole month), the average direction of the wind was northeast (Ministerio de Fomento, Spanish Government, 2019). From Fig. 2, it is clear that the highest amounts of microplastics were found the days with the highest winds, the more wind, the more microplastic debris, which is logical since most of these microplastics -which are mainly PE and PP- (see Section 3.2) were on the surface of the water or in the water column as a result of their lower density compared to that of sea water (Crawford and Quinn, 2016). Fig. 3 shows the percentage of the tar weight found each sampling day in the 1–5 mm fraction. As it can be seen, tar was found between 1 and 5% (2% as an average). Previous studies carried out in the same
3.2. Microplastics morphology and type Once the microplastic fraction was weighted, it was classified according to the system proposed by Crawford et al. (Crawford et al., 2017). As can be seen in Fig. 4, fragments were the most abundant particles in each sampling day (between 72 and 92% -83% of the total), followed by pellets (between 2 and 24% -11% of the total-) and fibres (between 3 and 13% -4% of the total-). Such distribution is also similar to that obtained from our previous study (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019), except for the number of fibres which was higher in this case. Concerning other beaches of the Canary Islands in which the morphology of microplastics was studied, this pattern was also similar to that obtained in Ámbar beach in La Graciosa (Edo et al., 2019; Herrera et al., 2018) and Las Canteras beach in Gran Canaria (Herrera et al., 2018). Regarding Famara beach in Lanzarote, the morphology of microplastic was found different and with analogous percentages of pellets and fragments (around 43–44% for both of them, considering also tar) (Herrera et al., 2018). Finally, and in order to identify the type of microplastics found, IR spectroscopy analysis were carried out (see Experimental Section and Supplementary Material for more details). However, since the number of particles found each day was relatively high, we randomly selected 30 representative particles per sampling day and analysed them accordingly. As shown in Fig. 5, the distribution nature of the microplastics found was 76% of polyethylene (PE), 19% of PP and 1% of PS while 4% of them could not be identified. Such general distribution was also similar for all sampling days except for the first and last days in which a higher amount of PP, 33 and 23%, respectively, were obtained. 6
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This data agrees with those obtained in previous works carried out in the Canary Islands (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019; Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019; Herrera et al., 2018), and also with the fact that both PE and PP are the most currently produced in the world Plastics-The facts, 2018). As previously reported also in previous works (Edo et al., 2019), PVC or PET were not found, as a result of their higher density which suggests that they are sinking or associated with biota before arriving to the coast. It should also be highlighted that most of the microplastics that were collected showed a high degree of degradation. Many of them had a soft consistence and could be easily broken by the application of a low pressure. Besides, many of their surfaces were also cracked and their degraded colours also suggested their distant origin.
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4. Conclusions The analysis of the variation of meso and microplastic debris in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) during a moon cycle (sampling was develop on full moon, third quarter moon, new moon, first quarter moon and full moon again) revealed important variations in the amounts of plastics that arrive to the beach. Up to 16,000 particles were found during the whole study being the distribution of morphology and plastic types very similar to those of found in previous studies of the Canary Islands. No apparent relation was found between the moon phase and the presence of meso and microplastics. Indeed, an important effect of the wind direction and speed and, therefore, on the wave heights, was found. Authors' contribution María González-Hernández: Investigation, formal analysis Cintia Hernández-Sánchez: Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing review editing Javier González-Sálamo: Validation, investigation, formal analysis, resources, writing review editing, visualization Jessica López-Darias: Investigation Javier Hernández-Borges: Conceptualization, methodology, writing original draft, writing review editing, resources, supervision, project administration Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Acknowledgments J.G.S. would like to thank “Cabildo de Tenerife” for the Agustín de Betancourt contract at the Universidad de La Laguna. Authors thank the Research Support General Service (SEGAI) of the Universidad de La Laguna for the IR analysis. The support of the Fundación CajaCanarias (project 2016TUR07) is also granted. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110757. References Álvarez-Hernández, C., Cairós, C., López-Darias, J., Mazzetti, E., Hernández-Sánchez, C.,
7
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Monitoring of meso and microplastic debris in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) during a moon cycle María González-Hernándeza, Cintia Hernández-Sánchezb,c, Javier González-Sálamoa,c, ⁎ Jessica López-Dariasa, Javier Hernández-Borgesa,c, a Departamento de Química, Unidad Departamental de Química Analítica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL). Avda. Astrofísico Fco. Sánchez, s/n°. 38206, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain b Departamento de Obstetricia y Ginecología, Pediatría, Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Toxicología, Medicina Forense y Legal y Parasitología, Área de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Escuela Politécnica Superior de Ingeniería, Sección de Náutica, Máquinas y Radioelectrónica Naval, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Vía Auxiliar Paso Alto, n° 2 38001, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain c Instituto Universitario de Enfermedades Tropicales y Salud Pública de Canarias, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), Avda. Astrofísico Fco. Sánchez, s/n°. 38206, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Marine debris Mesoplastics Microplastics Tenerife Canary Islands Infrared spectroscopy
The occurrence and composition of meso (5–25 mm) and microplastics (1–5 mm) in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) was monitored during a complete moon cycle on the different moon phases between 17th June and 16thJuly 2019. A total of 10 points were sampled each day finding an average content of mesoplastics of 18 g/m2 (0.36 g/L) and of microplastics of 13 g/m2 (1277 items/m2 or 1.6 g/L). Polypropylene and polyethylene accounted for 19% and 76% of the total, respectively. Tar was also found in the 1–5 mm fraction (2% of the total). Among the particles found, 83% were fragments, 11% pellets, 4% fibres and 2% films. The obtained results revealed that microplastic presence could not be related in this case with the tides but with the orientation and strength/speed of the wind.
1. Introduction
plastics are released into the environment with a microscopic size (this is the case of their use in many hygiene products, for example) they are called “primary microplastics”, while “secondary microplastics” are those obtained as a result of the breakage of plastics of much bigger size. As a result, substantial quantities of plastic particles of small size are already present in the whole marine ecosystem (Auta et al., 2017; Constant et al., 2019; Kazour et al., 2019) and many of them are transported great distances (Nuelle et al., 2014). The directions of the wind and ocean currents are important factors that affect the level of plastics contamination of the coast, specially beaches. Understanding the presence and distribution of microplastics is fundamental to evaluate the ecological risks that they cause and to identify the ways of degradation of microplastics (Kanhai et al., 2017). In an attempt to protect more effectively the marine environment across Europe, the EU implemented the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) on June 2008 (Directive 2008/56/EC, 2008). This Directive clearly aims to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) of the EU's marine waters by 2020 and to protect the resource support upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend. For
Nowadays, it is clear that humanity is facing a very important environmental problem associated with the extremely high production and consumption of plastics in the world (around 348 million tons were produced in 2017 (“Plastics-The facts, 2018)). The fact that plastics can be easily and cheaply produced and that they have properties that allow to manufacture nearly any desired plastic object with a high long-term resistance, have surely contributed to their popularity, but also to their curse from the environmental point of view, especially in the oceans (Zhang et al., 2019). When plastics reach marine waters, they can break into smaller pieces: mesoplastics (size in the range 5–25 mm), microplastics (1–5 mm), mini-microplastics (1 mm-1 μm) and/or nanoplastics (size < 1 μm) (Crawford et al., 2017). Such breakage is a result of the action of thermo-oxidative, photo-oxidative, biological, atmospheric oxidation and hydrolytic degradation processes as well as mechanical degradation (abrasions, bending, impacts, etc.), which is, together with photo-oxidation, the most important (Crawford et al., 2017). When
⁎ Corresponding author at: Departamento de Química, Unidad Departamental de Química Analítica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL). Avda. Astrofísico Fco. Sánchez, s/n°. 38206, San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Spain. E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Hernández-Borges).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110757 Received 6 October 2019; Received in revised form 17 November 2019; Accepted 18 November 2019 0025-326X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: María González-Hernández, et al., Marine Pollution Bulletin, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110757
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that purpose, each member state should develop a strategy for its marine waters. In Spain, the MSFD was transposed by law 41/2010 (Ley 41/2010, de 29 de diciembre, de protección del medio marino, 2010), in which the Spanish coasts were divided in 5 regions, being one of them the Canary Islands. Since then, the Spanish Government has initiated several actions to monitor the presence of marine litter, including microplastics, on beaches (BM-6 program) (CEDEX, 2018, 2017, 2016; Directive 2008/56/EC, 2008). As part of such monitoring program, and since autumn 2016, Famara beach (located at Lanzarote, Canary Islands) has been monitored twice a year (finding important amounts of microplastics) though the obtained results are still insufficient to establish the GES of the region as the latest report has indicated (Instituto Español de Oceanografía, 2012). Apart from these studies, few others have been published concerning the presence of microplastics in the same beach (Baztan et al., 2014) or other ones located in different islands like Fuerteventura (Baztan et al., 2014), Gran Canaria (Herrera et al., 2018) or Tenerife (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019), which corroborate that the Canary Islands archipelago is an area of microplastics and tar accumulation from the open North Atlantic Ocean caused by the Canary Current which has a southward flow. In most cases, a single sampling was developed (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019; Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019) and only in one of them an annual study was carried out with a sampling periodicity of two weeks (Herrera et al., 2018). In one of those previous works, which was developed by our group (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019), we studied for the first time the presence of microplastics in six beaches from Tenerife (Canary Islands) finding high amounts of them in Playa Grande, in the municipality of Arico (2971 items/m2, 99 g/m2 and 2.0 g/L). As pointed in our previous study, such high presence of microplastics clearly suggested the need of carrying out more monitoring programs for further studies. It should also be highlighted, that this beach has been particularly popular in local and national media during the last year as a result of the increasingly arrival of macro, meso and microplastics (in general of marine litter) which has made necessary a periodical cleaning of the beach by volunteers and non-governmental associations. Microplastics abundance in the coastal zones is likely to vary not only over space but also over time, that is why the sampling period and spatial distribution are of special concern. Regarding the periodicity of the sampling, many studies frequently develop a single sampling (Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019) while others develop a longerterm evaluation, in many cases once a month (Herrera et al., 2018). In order to accomplish this, it is important to know how the abundance of microplastics varies on small temporal scales, which can also differ from one place to another, as a result of the local variation in hydrological processes; of particular interest is also the monitoring during a moon cycle, in order to study the possible influence of the tides. To the best of our knowledge, microplastic monitoring during a complete moon cycle has only been developed in two occasions (Lima et al., 2016; Ramos and Pessoa, 2019). Lima et al. (Lima et al., 2016), for example, studied the moon influence on the distribution of fish larvae, zooplankton and also plastic debris in mangrove creeks of the Goiana Estuary in Brazil. ANOVA showed that the microplastic content did not differ significantly among moon phases. In another study developed by Ramos et al. (Ramos and Pessoa, 2019), authors examined the composition and the spatial/tidal changes of marine debris caught with a fishing net during a fishery survey in two different areas of a sand beach at the northeast of Brazil during two moon cycles. Significant differences between areas and tides were registered for plastic, metal and cloth. In an attempt to study in depth the abundance changes of meso and microplastics among space and tides during a short time scale sampling in Playa Grande (Tenerife), we developed an exhaustive study during a complete moon cycle, sampling the days of full moon, third quarter, new moon, first quarter and full moon again, during June–July 2019. To the best of our knowledge, this work represents the first study of
Table 1 Data of the sampled beach and sampling days. Beach name
Playa Grande
Municipality Sampling date
Arico (Tenerife) 06/17/19 (full Moon); 06/26/19 (third quarter); 07/01/19 (new moon); 07/09/19 (first quarter); 07/16/19 (full moon) N 28° 9′ 9.068″ O 16° 25′ 54.443″ 120 m Low/medium Northeast Fine (black) Sporadic days (developed by volunteers) 10
Coordinates Total length Touristic impact Orientation Sand type Cleaning Number of sampling points per day
these characteristics (moon cycle study) in which meso and microplastic debris are monitored in a beach and one of the very few studies in which microplastic monitoring has been developed during a whole moon cycle. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Study area and field work Playa Grande beach was sampled during a complete moon cycle between 17th June and 16th July 2019 following the indications of the Guidance on Monitoring of Marine Litter in European Seas (Galgani et al., 2013). Table 1 shows the characteristics of the beach as well as the sampling dates. Fig. 1 shows a photograph of the location of the beach and of the locations of the sampling points. Sampling was developed at the high tide line and with a separation of approximately 10 m between each point, following the same procedure as in our previous work (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019). Briefly, a wooden frame of 50 × 50 cm was used to delimitate the sampled sand fraction. A stainless-steel vessel was used to collect the sand down to 5 cm deep, which was sieved in-situ using 1- and 5-mm stainless-steel circular sieves of 20 cm of diameter (VWR® International). The collected fraction in each sieve was introduced in glass bottles and/or Petri dishes (VWR® International) and taken to the laboratory for further analyses. 2.2. Separation of microplastics by flotation Collected microplastics were separated by density using a saturated NaCl (Panreac Química) solution (the approximate density of the solution was 1.2 kg/L). Afterwards, the floating material was passed through a paper filter using a Bücher funnel. The filtrate was then washed with deionized water and air dried. Non-plastic materials such as pieces of algae, tar, wood, etc. were then removed while plastics were weighted (Sartorius Entris 224I-1S analytical balance with a maximum weighting capacity of 220 g and 0.1 mg of resolution). The collected microplastics were counted and visually characterized by size and shape. Concerning mesoplastics, they were also introduced in the NaCl solution to verify their flotation, cleaned with deionized water, dried and also weighted. 2.3. Infrared analysis For infrared (IR) measurements the same instrumentation (a Fourier Transform IR (FTIR) spectrometer - Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR)-, Bruker IFS 66/S equipped with a high-intensity global source, KBr beamsplitter and a deuterium triglycine sulphate (DTGS) detector) and the same procedure of our previous work was used (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019). See Supplementary Material for more information. 2
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Atlanc Ocean Playa Grande
Canary Islands (Tenerife)
Africa
Fig. 1. Location of the Canary Islands and of the beach studied in this work (Playa Grande), as well as the satellite view of the beach showing the location of the sampling points.
3. Results and discussion
southwest in the islands, and which causes north-facing beaches to be involved in cross-border contamination episodes, in particular, lowdensity marine debris that float on the sea as previous works have shown (Baztan et al., 2014; Herrera et al., 2018). Tables 1S–5S and Tables 6S–10S of the Supplementary Material show the results of the six days sampling of meso and microplastics, respectively, after developing the experimental procedure indicated in the Experimental Section of this work and which included an in situ sieving of the sand (1 and 5 mm sieves) and a later flotation of the materials using a NaCl saturated solution (the averages correspond with the average of the 10 sampling points taken each sampling day); while Tables 2 and 3 compile the total results obtained for both meso and microplastics. Once dried, visual separation of tar, pieces of wood, algae, pumites, etc. was developed before the final weighting of the samples. As can be seen in the tables, and concerning the total amount of mesoplastics found, a total weight of nearly 227 g of mesoplastics (size in the range 5–25 mm) were obtained, which represents and average of 18 g/m2 or 0.36 g/L, being the maximum amount of mesoplastics found 63 ± 26 g/m2 or 1.3 ± 0.5 g/L, which were collected on the last sampling day (full moon), and the lowest amount, 2.3 ± 1.0 g/m2 or 0.047 ± 0.019 g/L, which were gathered on the
3.1. Sampling and meso/microplastics separation As previously indicated, Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain), has a northeast orientation and receives important amounts of marine litter daily. To monitor the short-term arrival of meso and microplastics, we developed this study during a complete moon cycle, from mid-June to mid-July, since, according to official historic data (2017–2018, see Figs. 1S and 2S of the Supplementary Material) this is one of the periods of the year with the highest winds and wave heights. As it can also be seen in those figures, during nearly 85% of the whole year the wind has also a northeast direction, which is the same as the orientation of the beach. Indeed, from January to August 2019, July has been the month with the highest wave heights being the wind pattern also nearly the same as in previous years (see Fig. 3S of the Supplementary Material). Both facts (a northeast wind direction nearly all over the year and the northeast orientation of the beach) are the perfect combination for the high arrival of marine debris and, consequently, meso and microplastics. This is produced by the current of the Canaries, which circulates from north-northeast to south3
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Table 2 Amount of mesoplastics (5–25 mm) including their confidence intervals (95% of probability) found in Playa Grande during a moon cycle (5 sampling days). Mesoplastics
Total weight of mesoplastics (g)* g/m2 g/L
Total content
Maximum (per sampling day)
Minimum (per sampling day)
Average of 5 days
226.91 – –
157.13 ± 6.42 63 ± 26 1.3 ± 0.5
5.85 ± 0.24 2.3 ± 1.0 0.047 ± 0.019
45.38 (63.43**) 18 (25**) 0.36 (0.51**)
*Mesoplastics were weighted using a precision balance but their weight was adjusted to two decimals. **Standard deviation. Table 3 Amount of microplastics (1–5 mm) including their confidence intervals (95% of probability) found in Playa Grande during a moon cycle (5 sampling days). Microplastics
Number of fragments detected Total weight of microplastics (g)* Items/m2 g/m2 g/L
Total content
Maximum (per sampling day)
Minimum (per sampling day)
Average of 5 days
15,958 164.55 – – –
6427 92.09 2571 ± 597 36 ± 18 0.74 ± 0.37
472 2.30 189 ± 66 0.92 ± 0.51 0.018 ± 0.010
3192 32.91 1277 (1055**) 13 (14**) 1.6 (2.8**)
*Microplastics were weighted using a precision balance but their weight was adjusted to two decimals. **Standard deviation.
Microplastic amount
120
W eig h t (g )
100 80 60
40 20 0
Microplastic particles
Nu mb er o f p art icles
7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0
Fig. 2. Microplastic amount and number of microplastic particles found in Playa Grande during a moon cycle (June–July 2019).
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06/17/2019
06/26/2019
5%
07/01/2019 3%
4%
96%
95%
07/09/2019
97%
07/16/2019 1%
3%
Microplascs Tar 99%
97%
Fig. 3. Percentage of microplastics and tar collected in Playa Grande after flotation separation in a NaCl saturated solution.
06/17/2019 5%
2%
06/26/2019
5%
4%
1%
07/01/2019
4%
3%
2% 1%
7%
8%
13%
75%
83%
07/09/2019 4%
2% 0%
87%
07/16/2019 1%
2%
3%
Total
0%
4%
2%
0%
11%
24%
72% 83%
92%
Pellet
Fragment
Fibre
Film
Foam
Fig. 4. Results obtained after the visual classification of the microplastics collected at Playa Grande following the classification of Crawford et al. (Crawford et al., 2017).
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06/17/2019
06/26/2019
3%
7%
07/01/2019 12%
13%
33%
57% 88%
87%
07/09/2019 3%
14%
07/16/2019
Total 4% 1%
10%
19%
27%
73% 76%
73%
PS
PP
PE
Non-idenfied
Fig. 5. Results obtained after chemical classification of the particles collected at Playa Grande and submitted to flotation in a saturated NaCl solution. PP: polypropylene; PE: polyethylene; PS: polystyrene.
area suggested that tar litter may come from the fragmentation of old oil spills accumulated on rocks or from ships that release their bunker oil, being still frequent to find them in some of the beaches (ÁlvarezHernández et al., 2019; Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019; Herrera et al., 2018).
second sampling day (third quarter moon). Regarding the microplastic fraction (1–5 mm), nearly 165 g of microplastics were collected during the five sampling days, which accounted for nearly 16,000 particles. The average concentration found in the five days was 1277 items/m2 (13 g/m2 or 1.6 g/L). The maximum concentration, a total of 2571 ± 597 items/m2 (12 ± 2 g/m2 or 0.23 ± 0.04 g/L) were found on the fourth day (first quarter) while the lowest concentration was 189 ± 66 items/m2 (0.92 ± 0.51 g/m2 or 0.018 ± 0.010 g/L). Fig. 2 shows total amount (g) of microplastics as well as the number of items found each sampling day related with the moon phase, including their confidence intervals. As can be seen, there is an important variability between each sampling day. One-way ANOVA was performed to determine whether the meso and microplastic mean densities vary with the different moon phases. Significant differences (p < 0.01) were found for both meso and microplastics content in all the five days. However, such variation may not be related with the tide, as a result of the fact that no higher amounts were found during both full moon and new moon days. In fact, important differences in the content of meso and microplastics were found between the first and the last full moon which might be explained observing the wind pattern and speed. During the first sampling day (full moon) the mean speed of the wind was 9 km/h, while the rest of the sampling days were 27, 45, 41 and 50 km/h, respectively. During all those days (in fact during the whole month), the average direction of the wind was northeast (Ministerio de Fomento, Spanish Government, 2019). From Fig. 2, it is clear that the highest amounts of microplastics were found the days with the highest winds, the more wind, the more microplastic debris, which is logical since most of these microplastics -which are mainly PE and PP- (see Section 3.2) were on the surface of the water or in the water column as a result of their lower density compared to that of sea water (Crawford and Quinn, 2016). Fig. 3 shows the percentage of the tar weight found each sampling day in the 1–5 mm fraction. As it can be seen, tar was found between 1 and 5% (2% as an average). Previous studies carried out in the same
3.2. Microplastics morphology and type Once the microplastic fraction was weighted, it was classified according to the system proposed by Crawford et al. (Crawford et al., 2017). As can be seen in Fig. 4, fragments were the most abundant particles in each sampling day (between 72 and 92% -83% of the total), followed by pellets (between 2 and 24% -11% of the total-) and fibres (between 3 and 13% -4% of the total-). Such distribution is also similar to that obtained from our previous study (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019), except for the number of fibres which was higher in this case. Concerning other beaches of the Canary Islands in which the morphology of microplastics was studied, this pattern was also similar to that obtained in Ámbar beach in La Graciosa (Edo et al., 2019; Herrera et al., 2018) and Las Canteras beach in Gran Canaria (Herrera et al., 2018). Regarding Famara beach in Lanzarote, the morphology of microplastic was found different and with analogous percentages of pellets and fragments (around 43–44% for both of them, considering also tar) (Herrera et al., 2018). Finally, and in order to identify the type of microplastics found, IR spectroscopy analysis were carried out (see Experimental Section and Supplementary Material for more details). However, since the number of particles found each day was relatively high, we randomly selected 30 representative particles per sampling day and analysed them accordingly. As shown in Fig. 5, the distribution nature of the microplastics found was 76% of polyethylene (PE), 19% of PP and 1% of PS while 4% of them could not be identified. Such general distribution was also similar for all sampling days except for the first and last days in which a higher amount of PP, 33 and 23%, respectively, were obtained. 6
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This data agrees with those obtained in previous works carried out in the Canary Islands (Álvarez-Hernández et al., 2019; Baztan et al., 2014; Edo et al., 2019; Herrera et al., 2018), and also with the fact that both PE and PP are the most currently produced in the world Plastics-The facts, 2018). As previously reported also in previous works (Edo et al., 2019), PVC or PET were not found, as a result of their higher density which suggests that they are sinking or associated with biota before arriving to the coast. It should also be highlighted that most of the microplastics that were collected showed a high degree of degradation. Many of them had a soft consistence and could be easily broken by the application of a low pressure. Besides, many of their surfaces were also cracked and their degraded colours also suggested their distant origin.
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4. Conclusions The analysis of the variation of meso and microplastic debris in Playa Grande beach (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain) during a moon cycle (sampling was develop on full moon, third quarter moon, new moon, first quarter moon and full moon again) revealed important variations in the amounts of plastics that arrive to the beach. Up to 16,000 particles were found during the whole study being the distribution of morphology and plastic types very similar to those of found in previous studies of the Canary Islands. No apparent relation was found between the moon phase and the presence of meso and microplastics. Indeed, an important effect of the wind direction and speed and, therefore, on the wave heights, was found. Authors' contribution María González-Hernández: Investigation, formal analysis Cintia Hernández-Sánchez: Conceptualization, methodology, investigation, writing review editing Javier González-Sálamo: Validation, investigation, formal analysis, resources, writing review editing, visualization Jessica López-Darias: Investigation Javier Hernández-Borges: Conceptualization, methodology, writing original draft, writing review editing, resources, supervision, project administration Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Acknowledgments J.G.S. would like to thank “Cabildo de Tenerife” for the Agustín de Betancourt contract at the Universidad de La Laguna. Authors thank the Research Support General Service (SEGAI) of the Universidad de La Laguna for the IR analysis. The support of the Fundación CajaCanarias (project 2016TUR07) is also granted. Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2019.110757. References Álvarez-Hernández, C., Cairós, C., López-Darias, J., Mazzetti, E., Hernández-Sánchez, C.,
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