Plastics in the city: spatial and temporal variation of urban litter in a coastal town of France.

Plastics are ubiquitous in the environment, causing pollution recognized as a marker of the Anthropocene era. All environments are affected, including coastal and river ecosystems, where studies have shown that plastic waste contamination is proportional to the level of urbanization. This study, to our knowledge, is the first in France to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of litter across the Land-Sea continuum, using debris classifications based on OSPAR (Oslo-Paris Convention 1992) and EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility).

A Pan-European study of the bacterial plastisphere diversity along river-to-sea continuums.

Microplastics provide a persistent substrate that can facilitate microbial transport across ecosystems. Since most marine plastic debris originates from land and reaches the ocean through rivers, the potential dispersal of freshwater bacteria into the sea represents a significant concern. To address this question, we explored the plastisphere on microplastic debris (MPs) and on pristine microplastics (pMPs) as well as the bacteria living in surrounding waters, along the river-sea continuum in nine major European rivers sampled during the 7 months of the Tara Microplastics mission.

Comparison of macrolitter and meso- and microplastic pollution on French riverbanks and coastal beaches using citizen science with schoolchildren.

Rivers are the major source of anthropogenic litter entering the ocean, especially plastic debris that accumulates in all ecosystems around the world and poses a risk to the biota. Reliable data on distribution, abundance, and types of stranded plastics are needed, especially on riverbanks that have received less attention than coastal beaches. Here, we present the citizen science initiative Plastique à la loupe (Plastic under the magnifier), which compares for the first time the distribution of different litter sizes (macrolitter and meso- and microplastics) over 81 riverbanks and 66 coastal beaches sampled in France between 2019 and 2021.

Untargeted metabolomic insights into plastisphere communities in European rivers.

Every year, rivers introduce a staggering amount of hundred kilotons of plastic into the Oceans. This plastic is inhabited by microorganisms known as the plastisphere, which can be transferred between different ecosystems through the transport of microplastics. Here, we simulated the microbial colonization of polyethylene-based plastic pellets that are classically used to manufacture large-scale plastic products.