Plastic ‘scrubbers’ in hand cleansers: a further (and minor) source for marine pollution identified

Small, inconspicuous fragments of plastic, generally < 0.5 mm across (i.e. microlitter) derived from some hand cleaners and cosmetic preparations, and also used with some airblast cleaning media, are an unusual addition to post-consumer waste entering marine waters. The environmental significance of this material is unknown, but here is a further example of the intrusion of anthropogenic waste of dubious value into marine ecosystems. It could impact sea-surface microlayer ecosystems and the meiofauna of intertidal sediments. It is also speculated that these finely granulated plastics, once dispersed through the oceanic water column, could prejudice the results of some ambitious particulate carbon flux experiments as well as interfere with elemental and mineralogic composition analyses of suspended particles. They may also warrant attention when determining heavy metal concentrations in contaminated fine-grained sediments of estuarine and harbour environments.