Airborne microplastics in indoor and outdoor environments of a coastal city in Eastern China.

Microplastics (MPs) in marine and terrestrial environments have been intensively studied, but the dynamics of airborne MPs remains limited. Existing studies on atmospheric MPs are mostly derived from collection of atmospheric deposition, whereas direct measurements of airborne MPs are scarce. However, the abundance of airborne MPs is more relevant for evaluating human inhalation exposure risk.

Transport and fate of microplastics from riverine sediment dredge piles: Implications for disposal.

Microplastics (MPs) are an environmental problem of growing concern. Aquatic sediments are considered as a final sink for MPs, but dredging can remobilize sedimentary MPs into both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Although dredging is globally used for waterway deepening and ecological restoration, the environmental impacts of dredging on MP pollutants has not been previously assessed.

Preferential accumulation of small (<300 μm) microplastics in the sediments of a coastal plain river network in eastern China.

Microplastics are a global concern for their threat to marine ecosystems. Recent studies report a lack of smaller microplastics (<300 μm) in oceans attributed to a "loss in ocean". Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the absence of smaller microplastics, but their fate and transport remain an enigma.

The establishment of an automatic separation system for marine meiobenthos.

Research of the marine meiobenthos is of great value in the marine ecology and the marine mineralogy. At present, picking up meiobenthos from the sedments manually under microscope is still prvalent in spite of the large consumption of human power and time. So that in this paper, an automatic separation system was established.