MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. The Arctic Floating University is the first project to conduct regular studies of microplastics in the Barents Sea and to find this contaminant in the Kara Sea. A TASS correspondent has joined the expedition onboard the Professor Molchanov research/survey vessel to see how scientists catch microplastics and to find out how the plastic waste gets to the shores of the hard-to-reach Novaya Zemlya.
What are microplastics?
During the expedition, the microplastics studies were led by Alexandra Yershova, head of PlasticLab at the Russian State Hydrometeorology University. The studies involved a big group of students and other expedition participants, as those were complex studies, which cannot be conducted without analyzing the ocean’s contamination, water, bottom and shores. Thus, on the bridge always was a person to watch and register the floating litter. When scientists sampled bottom soils, they also planned to test them for plastic contamination, and, when ashore, the group, in compliance with special methods, collected plastic litter on the coast. Here is how it was.
Formally, microplastics are plastic particles smaller than 5mm. However, while it is possible to see a particle of five or even one millimeters, seeing smaller fragments is much more complicated. Besides, similarly complicated it is to assess how they affect the health and life of living organisms, including humans.
- We are sampling water, soils, and surely we focus mostly on particles of 100 to 300 microns - something we are unable to see but what does exist, - the scientist said.
One day, at an Italian caf· she saw examples of what people are throwing into the sea. It’s easier to say what was missing on that wall. Those were mostly brightly-colored plastic objects.
Microplastics studied began some 20 years ago. They are recognized as pollutants, but scientists cannot say for sure why they are hazardous and how - researchers still do not have unified calculation methods, and thus it is really a problem to compare results from different studies. At the same time, microplastics have been found practically everywhere, even in the most far-away Arctic seas.
In the Russian Arctic, the most active business development continues in the Barents Sea, hence the big amounts of waste. We could notice this when entering the busy sea route. Whenever we were sailing away from the traditional sea routes, the waste was less, or even none.
Noteworthy, what we can see floating on the sea surface is a tiny part of the problem. That stuff has got into the water just recently. About 70% of waste settles to the bottom making up a ‘plastic horizon,’ 15% of waste is brought to beaches, and only 15% remains on the surface or inside the water layer. For example, fishers often throw away used nets, since it’s expensive to transport them and have processed. Hence are growing the so-called ‘ghost-nets’ floating in the sea. They even look like ghosts, and keep catching sea creatures. We can see the consequences when a whale or a turtle trapped in nets are thrown onto the shore.
How to catch microplastics in water
The specialists have used different ways to catch microplastics in this region. The ship has water-intake equipment - a flow system that takes water to cool the mechanisms (this water is not used for other purposes). The researchers installed on that system a sampler filter with cells of 100 microns.
Another option to catch microplastics is to use towing nets, similar to those used to catch plankton. They are also called neuston nets. When such a sampler was launched for the first time, practically all the expedition participants rushed to the deck. This net looks like a sea snake or a sea ray with ‘eyes’ on the ‘head’s’ either side. Sometimes they are compared to an airplane. Such nets float in the surface layer. People on the decks gasped when the net ‘jumped out’ of the water, and worried endlessly when algae clung to one of the ‘eyes’. Everyone was relieved to see the algae managed to come off quickly.
- The neuston net, we’ve used, had cells of 330 microns. Thus, anything smaller doesn’t get into it. Our sampling system, which filters the sea water as the ship is sailing, has a system of filters where the cells’ smallest size is 100 microns, - Alexandra Yershova said. - This tiny size, which is most important in terms of microplastics’ impact on living organisms, since the particles of these sizes get involved into the food chain. They, for example, get accumulated in zooplankton. 300 microns are bigger particles, which can be excreted by the body or not captured by zooplankton at all. Such nuances need to be taken into account, because microplastics may differ.
Microplastics’ sampling does not have standards, and thus, "sampling is done as it is done," Alexandra said, thus different groups of researchers may come to one area with different samplers and they will have very different results.
- Nowadays, the biggest problem is in comparing data from different scientific teams, as everybody takes samples using own methods. The global science has been looking for an optimal method both for the marine environment, for fresh water, and for the air. We need an optimal protocol for sampling and testing to unify the microplastics monitoring in the environment.
Microplastics are calculated in items of particles. In 2019, in the Barents Sea the average rate was 30 items per a cubic meter - it is higher than in the Russian Arctic’s other seas. In the Laptev and East-Siberian Seas the rate was 1-2 items per a cubic meter of water.
- However, in the ‘urban’ seas, like the Baltic Sea, the contamination is 100-300 items per a cubic meter. At the same time, in the Baltic Sea researchers practically do not see big waste objects - they are not thrown away from ships, as the control is very strict, - the scientist said.
Garbage patches in Ocean
Plastics migrate across the World Ocean with streams. The biggest patch is the so-called North Pacific Garbage Patch. It is a giant mass of plastic litter, growing in the areas, where the streams are turning. Plastic objects of most different sizes are floating there. However, the surface is not hard enough to walk on it. Water there is like thick soup - by the way, the ‘plastic soup’ notion also exists.
The World Ocean has five areas of accumulated waste. The Antarctica is protected from pollutants by the circumpolar stream, though scientists have already found plastic waste and microplastics there. As for the Arctic, the situation is alarming, and the Barents Sea has every chance to have its own garbage patch. It is not a matter of "when," it is rather a matter of "where."
Ornithologists were among the first to draw attention to plastic litter in the Arctic. Birds are using plastics very actively. It wouldn’t have been a big deal if they were using it only for making nests.
Waste on Arctic beaches
In 2021, Yershova’s group collected more than 1,000 items of litter on Cape Zhelaniya - at the border between the Barents and the Kara Seas. The researchers were surprised, as Cape Zhelaniya is Novaya Zemlya’s north, one of the most hard-to-reach points in Russia and the world. However, in 2022, even more shocking was the result from Murmanets Bay. It is yet more complicated to get there - it is already the Kara, eastern side of Novaya Zemlya. Using similar methods, scientists collected about 3,000 fragments - ten sacks of plastic litter. Experts suppose streams from the Atlantic reach those places in minor streams across the Barents Sea.
Much waste comes from fishing vessels - nets, ropes, fish boxes and their fragments, transportation strips, a huge number of Norwegian, Danish, Iceland and even Spanish floats, packages from food and non-food products, shoes, bottles, cans, lids, ping pong balls fragments, badminton shuttlecocks, an endless amount of cotton swabs. Murmanets Bay was the center of children's toys - the Russian scientist has not seen that many toys anywhere else.
- This litter is from passenger vessels, cruise liners, which used to sail in the Barents Sea. Here are many Scandinavian, first of all Norwegian, signs. Hence, a long-distance transportation. The Norwegians have many tourist vessels, ferries, but it is far from here.
Scientists study litter on beaches because it is the main source of microplastics, which grow on the shore next to water, in the sun and amid winds. This is the litter that plankton easts, then fish, and this is how microplastics get into human bodies.
Microplastics in lunges and even in brains
- How much microplastics can be inside of me now? - I wonder.
- You have it, we all have lots of it everywhere! - Alexandra says. - We know for sure they are in all the environments, in all parts of the globe. We know, we have them in lungs, in placenta, brain, blood. A few studies about this were published last year.
Scientists cannot say now what microplastics may cause. However, they know for sure that microplastics’ nano particles are able to cross the hemato-encephalitic barrier, though it is too early to say this penetration has been proved. Scientists would need decades of studies, the expert said.
So far, scientists are talking about a potential risk. We already know about the high toxicity of pesticides, fuel combustion products, about the harmful effects of toxicants on the endocrine and immune systems. A microplastic particle, and this has been proven, has the ability to accumulate all these harmful substances and compounds on its surface.
- We have a microplastic particle, - the researcher explains, - it has a life span of 400 to 700 years, over all these years the particle travels around the world, collecting on its surface everything dissolved in water. And all this does not go anywhere, because it accumulates compounds on its surface. It is not only porous, it also has electrostatic properties, so it attracts elements in different environments.
The scientist calls the particles "toxic micro bombs", adding however that the risk is potential.
- No one has proved yet directly that it is possible to get a carcinogenic effect from this particle, say, in the third generation. But we are talking about the potential impact of microplastics on the body, including humans.
Such different plastics
Sampling is only the first stage of microplastics’ research. Samples must be tested in sterile conditions of specialized laboratories, and it takes time and effort to prepare samples.
Then, the sample is examined under a microscope - this is a preliminary analysis. The most important part is to identify the polymer composition. For that, scientists have spectral analysis, using complex equipment, and then they decipher results, checking them against the so-called library of spectra.
- In the libraries, the spectra are of pure plastic, while in the samples the plastic is beaten by winds, waves and the sun. Thus, there’s no beautiful recognizable image there, everything is in continuous noises.
Only high-class specialists can extract the truth from this noisy environment. This costs labor and money, the scientist said. It has taken experts two years to process samples from the Trans-Arctic expedition of 2019.
Arctic is fragile
Scientists call the Arctic region particularly vulnerable to microplastic pollution. The accelerated warming and the ice melting lead to higher anthropogenic loads. Over five years, the traffic along the Northern Sea Route has increased tenfold and will only continue to grow in the coming decade, as well as, for example, the tourism sector. Thus, the anthropogenic impact will only increase, and along with it will grow the environmental pollution.
- In order to somehow draw attention to this and to prevent further pollution of the Arctic, we must understand now at which level it is, and then we must try to establish control over this type of pollution, - Yershova concluded.