Quantification and characterization of microplastics in commercial fish from southern New Zealand

Abstract

Plastics are ubiquitous throughout global marine ecosystems. To date, there has been limited research on the prevalence of microplastic ingestion by commercially important marine fish in the southern hemisphere, particularly in the South Pacific. Therefore, this research aimed to quantify ingested microplastics from ten commercially important fish species from southern New Zealand using microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Overall, we found evidence of microplastic ingestion in 75 % of fish, with an average of 2.5 individual particles per fish. Microplastic fibers were the most commonly ingested. The most common colored microplastics ingested were blue, black and red, and 99.68 % of plastics identified were smaller than 5 mm. Raman spectroscopy of plastics recovered from nine fish species found polyethylene and polypropylene to be the most common plastic polymers ingested. Further research is necessary to ascertain the human ecological and health risks involved when exposed to microplastics through eating plastic contaminated fish.