2017-beaches-conference-md-bradt-microplastics

Microplastics on New Hampshire Beaches: How impacted are our beaches really?. The most abundant type of plastic debris in the ocean today and quantities of which will inevitably increas

Microplastics on New Hampshire Beaches: How impacted are our beaches really?

Dr Gabriela Bradt Fisheries Extension Specialist

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

The most abundant type of plastic debris in the ocean today and quantities of which will inevitably increase because of our overuse and dependence on LARGE, SINGLE USE PLASTIC items that break down into millions of smaller pieces

Defined as plastic pieces <5mm

PRIMARY: Plastics that are intentionally manufactured that are

“micro” in size such as:

NURDLES

MICROBEADS:

PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

SECONDARY: Plastics that come from larger plastics breaking down

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

Microplastics are a huge environmental/ecological concern because:

1) Their size-makes them widely accessible to a wide range of organisms from zooplankton-àwhales and everything else in between

2) Their concentrations= high likelihood that organisms will encounter them and ingest

them

3) Ingestion of even minute quantities of microplastics can disrupt physiological processes

(e.g energy storage in marine worms)

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

4) Their size-makes plastic debris readily adsorb harmful chemicals such as DDT,PCBs, PBDEs

from surrounding seawater

5) MPs can also LEACH contaminants upon ingestion

6) MPs (plastic debris in general) can also release toxic chemicals such as plasticizers, flame retardants and microbial agents incorporated into plastics during manufacturing

7) Ingestion down the food change has been well documented but more work needs to be done

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

1) Monitor beaches for MPs-Long term data set 2) Raise awareness

3) Behavior Change 4) Citizen Engagement

Began with development funds from NHSG in 2013-2014 -Collaboration with Blue Ocean Society

-First survey ever done on NH Beaches- looking at the concentrations of MP pollution on NH Beaches over a long period of time

-Completed 3 rd Sampling season in 2016 -Started 4 th Sampling season in May 2017 -Certainly increased awareness as a result of project-more and more requests to learn more and to share protocols

SO WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED??

A lot…and not much…

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

NH BEACH MICROPLASTICS PROJECT

wrack line 1mx 1m quadrat Scrape sand into

bucket (first 2 cm)

Sift sample through 1) Large 5mm sieve 2) Small 1mm sieve

Place samples in labeled bags- Store for processing later

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

PROTOCOLS- Field

EVERY sample-àsorted by hand.

Using forceps and magnifying glass, all plastic debris and other non-plastic debris was

removed and then sorted into categories

NH Sea Grant & UNH Cooperative Extension

PROTOCOLS- Sorting

MPs are sorted into categories, counted, logged onto data sheets Stored for

potential chemical analyses in the future

PROTOCOLS- Sorting

Weather

$$$$$

Volunteer Recruitment and Fatigue for MPs work MPs protocols can be tedious and time consuming Getting enough samples throughout the year

CHALLENGES

SOME DATA (2014-2016)

4900

1250

0

750

4000

5450

100

1050

350 0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

Hampton

Beach

Hampton Harbor

Hampton State Beach

Wallis Sands State Beach

Total MP Concetration/Beach/Month

2014

First year: Only sampled 3x

*Variability between beaches and within beaches

*Hampton Beach- expected more MPs and saw more MPs

*Hampton Harbor-smallest, yet had more than others

0

200

400

600

800

Pellets Fragments Whole Foams Films Filaments

Total # MPs/ Category/Year

2014-2016

Most consistent finding:

FOAMS number 1 type of MP found-regardless of beach, month or year

Followed by Fragments and Filaments

SOME DATA (2014-2016)

2014

2016 0

1,000,000

2,000,000

3,000,000

4,000,000

5,000,000

6,000,000

HB HH JB NHB WS SB

2014 2015 2016

17,555,467

14,697,600

15,991,390

#Plastic Pieces per entire beach area

(m2) (Pooled Data)

*3 year average: 16,081,485 MPs/Total Beach Area

Most noteable finding to date:

VARIATION!!!

-Varies year to year -varies month to month -Varies beach to beach

So does NH Have Impacted Beaches?

Are MPs a problem in NH?

Well- just doing some very simple math:

18 miles of coastline~ 11,654,946 m2

Avg #of MPs/m2 =7/m2

But likely a lot more than that.

So I’d say yes- they are LIKELY an environmental problem, but can’t comment on the Public Health/safety/danger to humans

In three years we have:

Sampled 13 beaches- 5 consistently in the last two

years

Almost 1,000 gallons of sand collected and processed

About 100 volunteers

3,000 pieces collected à potentially 16,000,000 MPs

Many, many hours of collecting, hauling, sorting,

sifting!

Two interns

10 Presentations

Several Articles

Need to reach more people!

Much more streamlined and efficient.

Still need more volunteers- would love to have FIVE teams of 3-5 people (1 team/beach) - that way we could sample more often during the 6-7 months of the sampling season-àHigher

resolution data!!!

Would love to get $$$ to buy “Microplastic Filtration System”- a big screen that uses static electricity to help filter out plastics up

to 100 microns!

Get some $$ to analyze the actual TYPES of plastics and

determine toxicity.

Need more money to expand the project to include southern Maine and northern MA beaches as well as delve into other microplastics sampling especially in Great Bay Estuary.

Keep sampling!

Next Steps

nhmarinedebris.org gabriela.bradt@unh.edu

Questions?