●  New re­search led by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth and eXXpe­di­tion has shown the is­lands and seas of the Caribbean are be­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by plas­tics and oth­er man­made fi­bres, pos­ing a po­ten­tial fu­ture threat to di­verse ma­rine life and the tourism in­dus­try.

●  The study rep­re­sents the first holis­tic as­sess­ment of ma­rine and land-based plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the South­ern Caribbean and some of the en­vi­ron­men­tal and hu­man fac­tors which might in­flu­ence its dis­tri­b­u­tion.

The Caribbean is renowned glob­al­ly for its stun­ning beach­es and crys­tal-clear ocean. How­ev­er, its is­lands and the sur­round­ing seas are be­ing con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by plas­tics and oth­er man­made fi­bres, pos­ing a po­ten­tial fu­ture threat to its di­verse ma­rine life and the tourism in­dus­try on which its econ­o­my de­pends.

That is ac­cord­ing to a new study, the first holis­tic as­sess­ment of ma­rine and land-based plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the South­ern Caribbean and some of the en­vi­ron­men­tal and hu­man fac­tors which might in­flu­ence its dis­tri­b­u­tion.

The study is the re­sult of sam­ple analy­sis from a pi­o­neer­ing all-fe­male Round the World sail­ing mis­sion led by eXXpe­di­tion. Sam­ples were col­lect­ed in late 2019 from the seas and seafloor, and from land-based as­sess­ments.

Off the coast of five Caribbean coun­tries, the study iden­ti­fied 18 dif­fer­ent poly­mers of plas­tic — in­clud­ing, syn­thet­ic fi­bres, paint flakes and acrylics — in wa­ters across the Caribbean, with the high­est con­cen­tra­tions (5.09 par­ti­cles per m³) lo­cat­ed off the San Blas is­lands in Pana­ma.

De­tailed ocean mod­el­ling and an as­sess­ment of re­gion­al poli­cies in­di­cat­ed the abun­dance of mi­croplas­tics in the area like­ly arose from a com­bi­na­tion of dis­tant sources car­ried by ocean cur­rents and run-off from main­land Pana­ma, which has some of the high­est es­ti­mat­ed lev­els (around 44%) of mis­man­aged waste in the re­gion.

By con­trast, the wa­ters off An­tigua, Bonaire and Colom­bia had low­er quan­ti­ties of ter­res­tri­al and ma­rine plas­tics. An­tigua, in par­tic­u­lar, had a high di­ver­si­ty of poly­mers, with the re­search sug­gest­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of the mi­croplas­tics col­lect­ed were like­ly to have been trans­port­ed by cur­rents gen­er­at­ed in the wider North At­lantic Ocean, even orig­i­nat­ing in the so-called North At­lantic garbage patch.

Writ­ing in Sci­ence of the To­tal En­vi­ron­ment, the study’s au­thors sug­gest both ter­res­tri­al lit­ter and the mi­croplas­tics iden­ti­fied in ma­rine sam­ples may arise from the mar­itime and tourism in­dus­tries.

That in turn, they say, rep­re­sents the com­plex chal­lenges of man­ag­ing plas­tic pol­lu­tion since both are ma­jor con­trib­u­tors to the economies of the Caribbean re­gion.

The re­search was led by sci­en­tists at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth (UK) in con­junc­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia (USA), Ply­mouth Ma­rine Lab­o­ra­to­ry (UK) and the Tech­no­log­i­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Pana­ma.

Dr Win­nie Courtene-Jones, eXXpe­di­tion Sci­ence Lead and Post-Doc­tor­al Re­search Fel­low in the In­ter­na­tion­al Ma­rine Lit­ter Re­search Unit at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth, is the study’s lead au­thor. She said:

“Un­til now, ev­i­dence of the abun­dance of plas­tics with­in the Caribbean has been lack­ing. This study presents a snap­shot of plas­tic pol­lu­tion, and how it dif­fers – in quan­ti­ty, na­ture, ori­gin and the poli­cies in place to man­age it – across the south of the re­gion. It con­tributes to­wards the void of knowl­edge re­gard­ing ma­rine plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the Caribbean Sea but al­so high­lights the need for in­ter­na­tion­al and in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tive re­search and so­lu­tions to plas­tic pol­lu­tion.”

eXXpe­di­tion’s Round the World voy­age left Ply­mouth in Oc­to­ber 2019 to vis­it some of the most im­por­tant and di­verse ma­rine en­vi­ron­ments on the plan­et with the aim of in­spir­ing a net­work of change­mak­ers, in­form­ing ef­fec­tive so­lu­tions with in­dus­try and in­flu­enc­ing pol­i­cy change on land.

Emi­ly Penn BEM, eXXpe­di­tion Founder and one of the co-au­thors on the cur­rent study, said:

“Our vi­sion for eXXpe­di­tion Round the World was to ex­plore re­mote and in­ac­ces­si­ble parts of the plan­et to pin­point where the so­lu­tions to plas­tic pol­lu­tion lie on land by bet­ter un­der­stand­ing the sources. The sur­pris­ing thing from our dis­cov­er­ies is the huge di­ver­si­ty of poly­mer types which means the pol­lu­tion has come from many dif­fer­ent sources and as a re­sult means the so­lu­tions need to be di­verse too. We all share one plan­et and wher­ev­er we live the ocean con­nects us - this study demon­strates why for any game-chang­ing ac­tion to tack­le ocean plas­tic pol­lu­tion all sec­tors of the com­mu­ni­ty must come to­geth­er in a holis­tic way across the Caribbean re­gion and be­yond.”

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth was the first to high­light the glob­al prob­lem of ma­rine mi­croplas­tics - earn­ing the Queen’s An­niver­sary Prize for High­er and Fur­ther Ed­u­ca­tion in 2019 – and was re­cent­ly named the lead­ing uni­ver­si­ty in the world for ma­rine re­search and teach­ing.

Pro­fes­sor Richard Thomp­son OBE, Head of the In­ter­na­tion­al Ma­rine Lit­ter Re­search Unit and se­nior au­thor on the study, added:

“It is now very clear that plas­tic lit­ter presents a glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal prob­lem. There are changes we can all make in our every­day lives to help ad­dress that chal­lenge. How­ev­er, it is on­ly by gain­ing a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of how plas­tic de­bris pass­es from its source to the ocean that we will be ful­ly equipped to tack­le the prob­lem.”

The full study — Courtene-Jones et al: Source, Sea and Sink – a holis­tic ap­proach to un­der­stand­ing plas­tic pol­lu­tion in the South­ern Caribbean — is pub­lished in Sci­ence of the To­tal En­vi­ron­ment, DOI: 10.1016/j.sc­i­totenv.2021.149098

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About the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth is renowned for high qual­i­ty, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly lead­ing ed­u­ca­tion, re­search and in­no­va­tion.

With a mis­sion to Ad­vance Knowl­edge and Trans­form Lives, Ply­mouth is a *top 50 re­search uni­ver­si­ty with clus­ters of world class re­search across a wide range of dis­ci­plines in­clud­ing ma­rine sci­ence and en­gi­neer­ing, med­i­cine, cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty and psy­chol­o­gy. A three-time win­ner of the Queen’s An­niver­sary Prize for High­er and Fur­ther Ed­u­ca­tion, most re­cent­ly in 2020 in re­spect of its pi­o­neer­ing re­search on mi­croplas­tics pol­lu­tion in the oceans and its im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment and chang­ing be­hav­iour, the Uni­ver­si­ty con­tin­ues to grow in stature and rep­u­ta­tion.

It has a strong track record for teach­ing and learn­ing ex­cel­lence, and has one of the high­est num­bers of Na­tion­al Teach­ing Fel­lows of any UK uni­ver­si­ty. With over 18,000 stu­dents, and a fur­ther 6,000 study­ing for a Ply­mouth de­gree at part­ner in­sti­tu­tions in the UK and around the world, and over 140,000 alum­ni pur­su­ing their cho­sen ca­reers glob­al­ly, it has a grow­ing glob­al pres­ence.

Vis­it http://www.ply­mouth.ac.uk

* Re­search Fort­night Re­search Pow­er League Ta­ble 2014.

About eXXpe­di­tion

eXXpe­di­tion is a not-for-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion led by ocean ad­vo­cate and sailor Emi­ly Penn BEM on a mis­sion to help peo­ple un­der­stand the true ocean plas­tic and tox­ic pol­lu­tion prob­lem, so they can use their skills to solve it from sea to source.

Since the first eXXpe­di­tion sail­ing mis­sion in 2014 across the At­lantic, 260 ex­cep­tion­al women have tak­en part in voy­ages to cre­ate their own nar­ra­tives, con­tribute to glob­al sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies and use their eXXpe­di­tion ex­pe­ri­ence to dri­ve change on land.

The eXXpe­di­tion Round the World mis­sion set out in 2019 to sail 38,000 nau­ti­cal miles with crews of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary and multi­na­tion­al women. The voy­ages were de­signed to trav­el through some of the dens­est plas­tic ac­cu­mu­la­tion zones to tack­le the dev­as­tat­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal and health im­pacts of sin­gle-use plas­tic and tox­i­cs in the world’s ocean and the mis­sion was com­plet­ed at sea and on­line in sum­mer 2021.