What are the impacts of microplastics?

Researchers found microplastics on 37 National Park beaches and shorelines - all of the sites they sampled during the study (Credit: NOAA). View and print this infographic and see the description below.

Trash travels, and microplastics are no exception. Once they enter the ocean, it can be difficult to understand where these tiny bits of plastics come from, but they can cause a lot of problems as they continue to travel.

Because they are so small, wildlife often mistake microplastics for food. Fish, mussels, and even whales consume microplastics. Microplastics attract and carry pollutants in the water, as well as release chemicals into the water around them that were added to make the original plastic products they came from colorful or flexible. Lab studies have shown that microplastics and chemicals in plastics may delay an animal’s development, cause problems with reproduction, and even make it difficult for them to fight off disease.

This is bad news for animals throughout the ocean food chain. Microscopic animals called zooplankton form the base of the food chain. When feeding, they may not be able to tell the difference between their usual snacks and these plastic pieces. Larger animals then eat those zooplankton, passing microplastics up the food chain, including to the animals that we eat!

Although many types of wildlife may ingest or be exposed to microplastics and their contaminants, more research is needed to understand exactly how they might be affected, and how those impacts may be distributed throughout the food web.

*Plastics in a sample from the Gulf of Mexico (Credit: NOAA).*

Infographic Description

This infographic represents results from the Quantification of Microplastics on National Park Beaches report, which was the product of a project funded by the NOAA Marine Debris Program and led by the National Park Service and Clemson University. For more detailed information, check out the report.

Microplastics on National Park Beaches
The National Park Service and Clemson University teamed up with the NOAA Marine Debris Program to collect and analyze beach sediments to assess the abundance and distribution of microplastics and microfibers on U.S. National Park beaches. This was a ‘snapshot’ study and results are based on one sampling point in time. 37 beaches were sampled at 35 National Parks, Monuments, Seashores, and Recreation Areas on the ocean and Great Lakes. Microplastics and Microfibers were found at all 37 beaches. Microplastic loads varied among sites. The beaches with the most microplastics were located at individual beaches in the Great Lakes and Pacific Islands. Microbeads were found at 6 beaches. Microplastic fragments were found at 15 beaches. Microfibers made up 97% of debris by count. The average number of microplastics varied from 21.3 - 221.3 pieces per kg of sand. 1 kg is about the same weight as a bag of flour. Coastal beaches in the Southeast and Gulf of Mexico were monitored as part of a previous project and were not included in this study. For more information see Chow et al. 2016.