Exponentially increasing microplastic accumulation in an urban estuary: insights from the Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island seafloor.

ABSTRACT: Narragansett Bay, RI, has experienced decades of anthropogenic impacts and as a result has been a hotspot for pollution research. Most recently, microplastic pollution is of increasing concern, with data showing high levels of microplastic contamination on shorelines and in surface sediments. Plastic production worldwide has been increasing exponentially since the 1950s, and this system-wide chronologic study uses seabed and marsh sediment cores to show that plastic pollution in our coastal systems reflects the same exponential trend. Using ten sediment cores, 20-42 cm in length, ranging from outside the city of Providence in the northern estuary to 30 km offshore in Rhode Island Sound, we find exponentially increasing microplastic (63 µm-5 mm) concentrations from the 1940s to the present

SUBMITTER: Fulfer VM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12811374 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature