Microplastic Occurrences in Sediments Collected from Marmara Sea-Istanbul, Turkey
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Microplastic Occurrences in Sediments Collected from Marmara SeaIstanbul, Turkey Asli Baysal1 · Hasan Saygin2 · Gul Sirin Ustabasi3 Received: 14 April 2020 / Accepted: 14 September 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Microplastics are persistent, synthetic polymers that have managed to spread even to the most remote places on earth. Studies reporting on the abundance of microplastics have recently increased worldwide, which has raised environmental concerns among scientific communities. Nevertheless, evidence of microplastic contamination from Turkey is limited even though the location is a critical point and the population is higher than most countries in the region. Thus, we aimed to detect microplastics in sediment samples collected from the Marmara Sea in Istanbul-Turkey. In this study, fourteen sediment samples were collected and sub-sampled, then plastic debris was extracted, quantified and characterized by the morphology and polymer structure. The result revealed that all of the samples contained microplastics, and their concentrations ranged between 0.3 and 85.6 g/kg sediment, and the most abundant plastic types were acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, ethylene vinyl acetate, and polystyrene. Keywords Microplastics · Plastic pollution · Sediment, marine, Turkey Microplastics (MPs) are synthetic organic polymer particles which are smaller than 5 mm (Jiang 2018; Ustabasi and Baysal 2019; Yabanli et al. 2019). MPs have specific features because plastics are physically and chemically distinct from natural substrates and remain much longer in the environment than natural substrates. These features caused them to be used extensively in various applications. Due to the continuously increasing amount of plastics, their debris is entering and contaminating different environmental components, especially marine environments across the world. Therefore, through plastic debris emerges contaminants in the marine environment, such as in the sediment. Sediments have the highest importance because they absorb of various contaminants, and the sediment quality has been recognized * Asli Baysal [email protected] 1
Health Services Vocational School of Higher Education, T.C. Istanbul Aydin University, Sefakoy Kucukcekmece, 34295 Istanbul, Turkey
2
Application and Research Center for Advanced Studies, T. C. Istanbul Aydın University, Sefakoy Kucukcekmece, 34295 Istanbul, Turkey
3
Graduate Scholl of Science Engineering and Technology, Istanbul Technical University, Maslak, Istanbul, Turkey
as an important indicator of water pollution (Baysal and Akman 2018). MPs can enter the sediment as both primary sources directly from industrial uses, as well as secondary sources resulting from the degradation of large plastic debris. MPs have been found in different types and forms in sediments, and the most common types of MPs detected in sediment samples are polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) (Antunes et al. 2013; Frias et
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