Investigation and identification of various microplastics found across Maltese sandy beaches

Abstract

The research study conducted was regarding the various microplastics found in sandy beaches in Malta which are Golden Bay, Pretty Bay, and Għadira Bay. The investigation was done by collecting samples during March, across various quadrants and three distances from the shore, using two sieves of 5 mm and 1 mm and placed in labelled glass vials. The samples were then identified using a Near Infrared spectrophotometer machine known as mIRoGun 4.0 to categories the types of plastics found, the wavelengths and absorbances were collected and compared to most common plastic standards. The sizes of the microplastics were measured under a microscope using a micrometre and categorised into various sized ranges. Through all the results gathered, the focus of the dissertation was to identify the main plastic pollutants in all three beaches. The results of each bay were compared, and Chi-squares statistics analysis were constructed using SPSS and were done to determine the causes that affect the type of microplastics found. From the literature reviews gathered, various microplastics were found around Malta and using other identification techniques such as density separation. The data showed that Pretty Bay had more polyamide, and the other had more polyethylene present within the sand. Other plastics were identified which had mixed polymers such as PVC and the most common plastics were in the 4 mm-5 mm ranges. The data confirmed with another paper conducted by Lomax (2022) where FT-IR was used instead of NIR, and the results proved similarities with the type of plastics found.