Surrounded by microplastic, since when? Testing the feasibility of exploring past levels of plastic microfibre pollution using natural history museum collections.

Microplastic fibres are a widespread pollutant in the marine environment. Their presence has been searched for in marine sponge specimens of a museum, collected over 20 years ago. The pollutant was observed in more than half of the samples analysed, allowing a reference point to be fixed in the past.