Nanoplastics can accumulate in marine life and threaten human health: Singapore study
But researchers estimate that there’s already over 150 million tonnes of plastic in the ocean
By Chen Lin
Tiny plastic particles called nanoplastics from everyday items such as plastic containers and straws could accumulate in marine organisms, transfer up the food chain and threaten food safety and human health, said researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS).
For the first time, a NUS research team working with the acorn barnacle, Amphibalanus amphitrite, demonstrated that nanoplastics – which are less than one micrometre in size and invisible to the naked eye – consumed during the larval stage are retained and accumulated inside the barnacle larvae until they reach adulthood.
In an experiment conducted in November 2016, the team incubated the barnacle larvae in solutions of their regular feed with plastics that were about 200 nanometres in size. The larvae were exposed to two different treatments: acute and chronic.
Barnacle larvae in the acute treatment were kept for three hours in a solution that contained 25 times more nanoplastics than what is currently present in oceans, while those under the chronic treatment were exposed to a solution with low concentrations of nanoplastics for up to four days.
