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River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide

Seas are polluted with macro- (>5 mm) and microplastics (<5 mm). However, few studies account for both types when modeling water quality, thus limiting our understanding of the origin (e.g., basins) and sources of plastics. In this work, we model riverine macro- and microplastic exports to sea...

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Autores principales: Strokal, Maryna, Vriend, Paul, Bak, Mirjam P., Kroeze, Carolien, van Wijnen, Jikke, van Emmerik, Tim
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10415377/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37563145
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40501-9
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author Strokal, Maryna
Vriend, Paul
Bak, Mirjam P.
Kroeze, Carolien
van Wijnen, Jikke
van Emmerik, Tim
author_facet Strokal, Maryna
Vriend, Paul
Bak, Mirjam P.
Kroeze, Carolien
van Wijnen, Jikke
van Emmerik, Tim
author_sort Strokal, Maryna
collection PubMed
description Seas are polluted with macro- (>5 mm) and microplastics (<5 mm). However, few studies account for both types when modeling water quality, thus limiting our understanding of the origin (e.g., basins) and sources of plastics. In this work, we model riverine macro- and microplastic exports to seas to identify their main sources in over ten thousand basins. We estimate that rivers export approximately 0.5 million tons of plastics per year worldwide. Microplastics are dominant in almost 40% of the basins in Europe, North America and Oceania, because of sewage effluents. Approximately 80% of the global population live in river basins where macroplastics are dominant because of mismanaged solid waste. These basins include many African and Asian rivers. In 10% of the basins, macro- and microplastics in seas (as mass) are equally important because of high sewage effluents and mismanaged solid waste production. Our results could be useful to prioritize reduction policies for plastics.
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spelling pubmed-104153772023-08-12 River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide Strokal, Maryna Vriend, Paul Bak, Mirjam P. Kroeze, Carolien van Wijnen, Jikke van Emmerik, Tim Nat Commun Article Seas are polluted with macro- (>5 mm) and microplastics (<5 mm). However, few studies account for both types when modeling water quality, thus limiting our understanding of the origin (e.g., basins) and sources of plastics. In this work, we model riverine macro- and microplastic exports to seas to identify their main sources in over ten thousand basins. We estimate that rivers export approximately 0.5 million tons of plastics per year worldwide. Microplastics are dominant in almost 40% of the basins in Europe, North America and Oceania, because of sewage effluents. Approximately 80% of the global population live in river basins where macroplastics are dominant because of mismanaged solid waste. These basins include many African and Asian rivers. In 10% of the basins, macro- and microplastics in seas (as mass) are equally important because of high sewage effluents and mismanaged solid waste production. Our results could be useful to prioritize reduction policies for plastics. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-08-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10415377/ /pubmed/37563145 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40501-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Strokal, Maryna
Vriend, Paul
Bak, Mirjam P.
Kroeze, Carolien
van Wijnen, Jikke
van Emmerik, Tim
River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
title River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
title_full River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
title_fullStr River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
title_full_unstemmed River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
title_short River export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
title_sort river export of macro- and microplastics to seas by sources worldwide
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10415377/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37563145
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40501-9
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