First records of microplastics in Crassostrea gigas and in the water column of the Bahía Blanca estuary (Southwestern Atlantic)

MELISA D. FERNÁNDEZ SEVERINI; DIANA M. VILLAGRÁN; BUZZI NATALIA; GABRIELA CHATELAIN-SARTOR

Congreso; VII Congreso Argentino de la Sociedad de Toxicología y Química Ambiental (SETAC); 2018

Humans have been used plastics indiscriminately since their discover and as a result of this action, there has been a substantial volume of them added to the ocean over the past 60 years (Fig. 1). Small plastic debris, called "microplastics" (MP), consist of heterogeneous particles of various shapes and colors suspended in the water column with a maximum size of 5 mm. They are widely distributed pollutants in all the marine ecosystems of the world andcan be involuntary ingested by any organism like representing a potential risk. They include manufactured plastics of microscopic size, such as industrial scrubbers and pellets that serve as precursors for the plastics industry (primary sources), or fragments or fibers of plastics derived from the decomposition of larger plastic products (secondary sources). Under this scenario the Bahía Blanca Estuary (BBE), at the SW Atlantic become an important area for the study of MPs, because important sewages and industrial discharges and intense port and maritime activities, fishing, tourism, that take place in this estuary, become potential sources of these emergent pollutants.