Microplastic Pollution in Marine Ecosystem and Its Remediation

Abstract

Since the initiation of the plastic industrial manufacturing, its production rate has been continuously increasing and attaining high records. However, along with the increase in its production, generation of the huge plastic waste also begins. Plastic polymers are extremely difficult to degrade and might accumulate within the environment for years. Also, poor plastic waste handling or management issues are responsible for the huge plastic pollution, most of which have also reached the marine environment. Eventual degradation of the plastics in the marine environment from long time generates microplastic pollutants there. Presence of microplastics in the marine environment would be responsible for evolution of the potential plastic-consuming organisms. Microorganisms attached to plastic surface make biofilm by electromagnetic interaction forces. Further, extracellular and intracellular microbial catalysts or enzymes metabolize plastics eventually. Although remediation of such microplastics in the marine environment is a difficult task, potential strategies could be implemented for the removal of such pollutants. Based on the technique of ocean currents, these microplastic pollutants would have transferred from their high concentration in ocean to low concentration at coastal regions and eventually settled there in coastal sediments. Potential microplastic remediation techniques could be applied on the different coastal region such as coastal sediment circulation, implementation of controlled natural reactors in intertidal regions, and use of specialized membrane. This would establish a continuous transport of microplastic pollutants from ocean to coastal region to maintain microplastic particulate equilibrium, thereby evacuating microplastics from the marine environment.