An undocumented source of plastic contamination in sensitive estuarine environments.

The degradation of plastic infrastructure installed along estuaries and coastal environments may constitute a significant source of plastic contamination. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of plastic infrastructure and the extent of surface degradation of these plastics in a case study system, the Swan and Canning Estuary, Western Australia. The severity of cracks, chips, deformation, and material loss were used to estimate a novel degradation index for the plastic components on structures.

A simple overflow density separation method that recovers >95% of dense microplastics from sediment.

Density separation can isolate microplastics from environmental samples containing sediment. Typically, a solution added to sediment causes microplastics with lower densities to float. The solution of choice can influence the recovery of different particles since denser solutions can separate a greater range of microplastics.