According to the work, they could have arrived in this remote area through the discharge of wastewater from washing machines at Antarctic bases and ships visiting the area.
The Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica, is one of the most remote areas from human settlements. However, according to a new study by the National University of Cordoba (Argentina) and the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) in Barcelona, microplastics, one of the most widespread pollutants of the 21st century, are present in the water column all along the year.
According to the study, recently published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, the flow of particles that settles on the Antarctic coast contains microfibres of anthropogenic origin which, according to the scientists, could have arrived there through the discharge of waste water from washing machines at Antarctic bases and ships visiting the area.
"The study shows that there is a flow of microfibres of anthropogenic origin in the water column of the Antarctic coast, and that this flow varies seasonally, being greater when the Antarctic bases have higher occupancy and more tourists visit the area, i.e. in summer," explains Gastón Alurralde, a researcher at the National University of Córdoba (Argentina) and first author of the study.
From his part, Enrique Isla, researcher at the ICM-CSIC and another authors of the study, warns that "the presence of these microfibres could affect the entire Antarctic ecosystem as a whole, as microplastics are ingested by zooplankton, on which larger animals such as penguins feed, and so accumulate along the marine food chain"., the researcher also adds, "microplastics contain additives that give the plastic different properties such as colour and resistance, and could also have adverse effects on Antarctic biota".
To carry out the study, the scientific team analysed, first with a magnifying glass and then chemically, several samples of settling particles collected with sediment traps between 2012 and 2015 at a depth of 25 metres in Potter Cove. It is located at King George Island, also known as 25 de Mayo Island, the largest of the South Shetland Islands off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Two years ago, another study published in the same journal revealed the presence of plastic microfibres in Antarctic sea ice, but this is the first time that the flux of anthropogenic microfibres in the Antarctic water column has been analysed.
This is the first study on plastic microfibres flux in the Antarctic and, given that their presence is expected to increase along with touristic activity in the area, the scientists hope that these results will contribute to implement a regulation to control this type of pollution.
"Our study opens up a research field and a line of socio-political interest on the conservation of the Antarctic environment. It also provides information for establishing new regulations to control domestic water emissions in Antarctic environments and for estimating the impact of microplastics on the marine environment at a global level," concludes the ICM-CSIC researcher.
This research has been carried out within the framework of Effects of Climate Change in Polar Shallow benthic Ecosystems (ECLIPSE) project, which aims to study carbon fluxes in Antarctic coastal environments and their relationship with climate change.
