Microplastic pollution in estuarine ecosystem at Sungai Laloh, Pasir Putih Creator

Abstract

Microplastic known as marine debris has affected our environment. Previous findings show smaller size of plastic can be ingested by aquatic life in the ocean. Most types of plastics take hundred years to decompose. As aquatic animal is source of food for human, this might cause worst effect for human digestive system in long term period. This project presents the characteristic and trends of microplastic pollution in the estuarine ecosystem at Sungai Laloh, Pasir Putih. The sample collected were green mussels and sediment located at two different sampling points. A comparison of similar total weight was made for the aquatic life which are wild mussel and cultured mussel to determine the most polluted mussel. The method involved pre-treatment of mussels and sediment sample, followed by digestion and analysis. In pre-treatment, the aquatic specimen and sediment undergo non-toxic density separation with the use of 1.2 kg/L sodium chloride (NaCl). The digestion was made by adding 35% (v/v) hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and incubated for 24 to 48 hours using incubator shaker at 50? and 80 rpm. Analysis was conducted using stereomicroscope and Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR FT-IR). In addition, SPSS statistical software was used to determine the significant difference between wild mussel and cultured mussel. Results show that microplastic fragments were found abundant in mussel while microplastic fibres were found in sediment. Plastic size more than 5 mm was also found in the samples. The types of polymer microplastic found were polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) and nylon (all polyamides). In comparison based on percentage of abundance, cultured mussel was the most polluted with microplastic. However, from paired T-test show that there is no significant difference for microplastic found in wild and cultured mussels (p>0.05).