Natural sea water and artificial sea water are not equivalent in plastic leachate contamination studies.

Background

Plastic contamination is one of the concerns of our age. With more than 150 million tons of plastic floating in the oceans, and a further 8 million tons arriving to the water each year, in recent times the scientific community has been studying the effects these plastics have on sea life both in the field and with experimental approaches. Laboratory based studies have been using both natural sea water and artificial sea water for testing various aspects of plastic contamination, including the study of chemicals leached from the plastic particles to the water. We set out to test this equivalence, looking at the leaching of heavy metals form plastic particles.

Methods

We obtained leachates of PVC plastic pre-production nurdles both in natural and artificial sea water and determined the elements in excess from untreated water by Inductively coupled plasma - optical emission spectrometry. We then used these different leachates to assess developmental success in the tunicate

Results

Here we report that chemical analysis of PVC plastic pre-production pellet leachates shows a different composition in natural and artificial sea water. We find that the Zn leaching from the plastic particles is reduced up to five times in artificial sea water, and this can have an effect in the toxicological studies derived. Indeed, we observe different effects in the development of

Conclusions

Our results show that, at least in this case, both types of water are not equivalent to produce plastic leachaetes and suggest that precaution should be taken when conclusions are derived from results obtained in artificial sea water.

Informations de copyright

Copyright: © 2024 Ullmann CV et al.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

No competing interests were disclosed.