Micro-plastic pollution along the Bay of Bengal coastal stretch of Tamil Nadu, South India

摘要

In line with the microplastic pollution, the present study is devoted to the investigation of microplastic particles (MPs) along the urban sandy beach called Marina, the renowned longest beach in India. Along the sea coast of about 5 km, the quantification of microplastic particles using optical microscope evidenced granular, filamentous, filmy, and tubular fragments in a total of 72 marine samples, including those filtered in the marine water column (WAT; 24 samples), those found in wet sediment (WET; 24 samples), and those found in dry sand (DSS; 24 samples). The filamentous-typed plastics of 79%, 57%, and 52% in WET, WAT, and DSS, respectively, dominated over the other granular and tubular types. The microplastic particles were in the range of 60-820 items per m3, 60-1620 items per kg, and 20-1540 items per kg for WAT, WET, and DSS, respectively.The standard deviation for the microplastics abundance was 193.1, 396.6, and 364.6 for WAT, WET, and DSS, respectively. Upon visual inspection, the microparticles were observed in eight different colours and most of the samples were found to contain two different fragment types. Apart from the optical microscopic examination, the microplastic particles were studied by scanning electron microscope (SEM) coupled with elemental analysis by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).The energy spectral graphs showed that the micro-filaments and micro-tubular particles contained polyesters and fluoro polymers. The presence of few micro-filaments of polypropylene and polyethylene was also evidenced from their atomic percentage values of carbon of about 88% and 93%, respectively. The presence of fluoro polymers and polyesters was also confirmed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR).