Microplastics in Surface Waters and Sediments from Guangdong Coastal Areas, South China

Joint Laboratory of Guangdong Province and Hong Kong Region on Marine Bioresource Conservation and Exploitation, College of Marine Sciences, South China Agricultural Universtiy, Guangzhou 510641, China

National Engineering Research Center for Non-Food Biorefinery, Guangxi Key Laboratory of Bio-Refinery, Guangxi Academy of Sciences, 98 Daling Road, Nanning 530007, China

Guangdong Laboratory for Lingnan Modern Agriculture, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China

Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editors: Marc A. Rosen, Tony Robert Walker and Elena Cristina Rada

Sustainability 2021, 13(5), 2691; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052691

Received: 4 January 2021 / Revised: 22 February 2021 / Accepted: 22 February 2021 / Published: 2 March 2021

View Full-Text Download PDF

Browse Figures

Review Reports Citation Export

Abstract

Microplastic is an emerging global pollutant that have attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and the public. Guangdong Province has a large population and a relatively well-developed economy, but lacks a modern pollution control system. Guangdong has a long coastline with varying levels of pollution, and little research has been conducted on microplastics. Therefore, we investigated the level of microplastic pollution in coastal areas of Guangdong Province, and the abundance of microplastics in surface waters and sediments at 13 sampling sites. The abundance of microplastics in surface water and sediment samples ranged from 850 to 3500 items/L and 433.3 to 4166.3 items/kg, respectively. Fiber is the main type of microplastics in both surface water and sediment. The sampled microplastics were typically transparent. Raman results show that the surface water sample mainly includes rayon (38.2%), polyethylene terephthalate (16.4%), and ethylene/vinyl acetate copolymer (12.7%). This study used the pollution load index method to evaluate the pollution risk of microplastics along the coast of Guangdong, and provided the basis for the formulation of environmental policy. View Full-Text

Keywords: Guangdong coastal area; microplastics; water; sediment; anthropogenic activities; risk assessment

▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Supplementary Material

Supplementary File 1:
PDF-Document (PDF, 318 KiB)

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Li, Y.; Zhang, Y.; Chen, G.; Xu, K.; Gong, H.; Huang, K.; Yan, M.; Wang, J. Microplastics in Surface Waters and Sediments from Guangdong Coastal Areas, South China. Sustainability 2021, 13, 2691. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052691

AMA Style

Li Y, Zhang Y, Chen G, Xu K, Gong H, Huang K, Yan M, Wang J. Microplastics in Surface Waters and Sediments from Guangdong Coastal Areas, South China. Sustainability. 2021; 13(5):2691. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052691

Chicago/Turabian Style

Li, Yizheng, Yindan Zhang, Guanglong Chen, Kaihang Xu, Han Gong, Kai Huang, Muting Yan, and Jun Wang. 2021. "Microplastics in Surface Waters and Sediments from Guangdong Coastal Areas, South China" Sustainability 13, no. 5: 2691. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052691

Find Other Styles

Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.

Article Metrics

Abstract views Pdf views Html views

Article Menu

Microplastics in Surface Waters and Sediments from Guangdong Coastal Areas, South China

Abstract

Supplementary Material

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Article Access Map by Country/Region

Author Biographies

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI