Sailing for the Ocean, Sampling Microplastics Along the North Atlantic

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

Marta Brotons Blanes Seamar

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

INDEX

ABSTRACT ...... 1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 SAMPLE COLLECTION ...... 2 SAMPLE PROCESSING ON BOARD ...... 3 OUR PROJECT ...... 4 How the idea became ...... 4 The boat ...... 5 The area in study ...... 5 ATTHACED ...... 8 REFERENCES ...... 9 Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

ABSTRACT

Plastic products are used in our daily life due to their durability, impermeability and low cost production. Nowadays, they constitute a 10% of waste generated worldwide, and many of them end up in the ocean. These characteristics which make them so useful for us, also makes them accumulate in the subtropical gyres where they break into microplastics. Those tiny plastics are available to a huge range of organisms so they are easily incorporating in the trophic chain. Despite the big impact of this pollutant, there still many unknowns. Due to the lack of measures and observations the distribution of microplastics on the open ocean is not well-know. Hence, we would like to stablish an easy and accurate methodology for sampling microplastics so everyone with a sailing boat can contribute to complete its concentration data worldwide. For this reason, we are carrying out a crossing North Atlantic trip while sampling microplastics, to start completing this database and to demonstrate that it is possible, by citizen science, to know microplastics distribution. º

INTRODUCTION

Plastics are synthetic organic polymer which due to it characteristics: durability, impermeability and low cost; its production had become necessary in our daily life (Derraik., 2002; Herrera et al., 2018; Cole et al., 2011)

“Bakelite”, the first modern plastic, was developed in 1907. In 1940s mass production of plastic began and since that moment the amount of plastic being manufactured has increased rapidly. In 1970s Scientifics tried to alert about the harm of plastics but they were ignored (Herrera et al., 2018). During 80s and 90s a concerned about marine debris started to appear and this waste was recognized as a serious pollutant.

Despite plastic are nowadays international known as contaminants, with the throw- away “user” plastic trend, plastic debris constitutes 10% of waste generated all around the world. Although, while only a small fraction of plastic produced is recycled, a 10% of them ends up in the ocean where they persist and accumulate. The same characteristics, which make plastics high-manufactured, make them durable in our environments. Plastics concentrate in the convergence zones of each of the five subtropical gyres: North and South Pacific, North and South Atlantic and Indic oceans. (Cozar et al., 2014). Those plastics break down in small fragments, due to photodegradation and others weathering processes, forming microplastics (Eriksen et al., 2014).

Microplastics are tiny pieces of plastics. This term was defined by Thompson et al. (2004), since that moment the concern about it has increased. Recently, small pieces of plastics have been differenced as “microplastics” (<5mm) and “mesoplastics” (5-25 mm) (Herrera et al., 2018), but we will refer to this group of pollutant as microplastics. Plastic particles are present in surface waters, water column, sediments of the coast lines and seabeds (Gago et al., 2015). There are three different sources of 1

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic. microplastics: microscopic size plastics manufactured (primary source), fragments of plastics from the breakdown of larger ones (secondary sources) and microbeads, produced for cosmetics, scrubs and tooth pastes.

The harm of microplastics on the marine biotas consists on their small size that makes them available to wide range of organism and by ingestion includes them on the trophic chain (Cole et al., 2011). Although, ingesting microplastics comes together with two different toxic responses: contaminants leaching from the plastics and externals pollutants adhered to the fragments (Cole et al., 2011).

Since microplastic studies started in 2004 (Thompson et al., 2004) there still being many incognitos and absence of data. This together with all the measures carried out lately for reducing plastic production, show the need of monitoring the concentration of microplastic worldwide. Hence, besides getting a bigger social concern, verification of the usefulness of those measures could be obtained. This pilot project has the objective of establishing a simple methodology with which sailing boats, respecting some characteristics and conditions, can measure the amount of microplastics debris along their trips. Therefore, by volunteers concerned and compromised, citizen science, a huge database could be supplied for the scientific community. With a crossing Atlantic trip on board of “Big Shadow” we want to demonstrate the ability and accuracy of a sailing boat for measuring microplastics.

SAMPLE COLLECTION

Surface seawater samples for plastic particles are collected using different kind of nets (Hidalgo et al., 2012). The most common one is the manta trawl net. It is a modified neutson net with buoyant wings to keep it on the sea surface (Gago et al., 2015). For higher velocities, recently, a new net has been developed, the AVANI trawl (Eriksen et al., 2017). These nets can be used by different kind of boats including sailing vessels. The conditions a ship must respect are a minimum length of 7 m and a speed in between 1 and 3 knots for the manta trawl (Gago et al., 2015) and up to 8 knots for the AVANI (Eriksen et al., 2017).

Figure 1. Diagram of the assembly of the net with the spinnaker bow on one side of the boat. (5Gyres Institute, Manta Trawl Trawlshare Protocol) 2

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

Since this is study tries to establish an easy, accurate and comfortable methodology for sailing vessels to sample microplastics, a smaller AVANI trawl has been designed. The trawl net has two buoyancy wings which make it lie on the sea surface. The collector is also buoyant on the surface. It has to be installed on one side of the boat with a spinnaker boom for avoiding the net to be on the wake zone causing mistakes on sampling.

The measures should be done every day the ocean conditions allow at the same time, if it is possible. If it is not they could be done at another time recording it. Each sample should be done three times. And after, an average of those three replications would be done to ensure accurate results. Nevertheless, since during a sailing trip it is important to short the period offshore, for safety reasons, the measures could be reduced to one single replicate, if it is considered. Each sample should be done along 1 nautical mile, marking the initial and final positions for calculating the water filtered. Although, having the GPS on during the measurement is recommendable for getting better quality results due to the variability of trajectory and speed (at the end of the document it is attached the survey we will use for our measures). For each tow the volume of water filtered and the surface filtered will be calculated so the results of each measures could be expressed in microplastic per volume (MP/m3), width of the net x thickness of the surface layer x length towed, and per area (MP/km2), width of the net x length towed. Figure 2. The AVANI net we designed

As plastic goods are part of our daily life, some precautions must be taken to minimize contamination. Only metal and glass equipment should be used during the collection and processing. Besides, materials should be cleaned before the use. Synthetic clothing and garment must be avoided.

SAMPLE PROCESSING ON BOARD

Once the sample collection has finished, each one of the replicas have to be well fixed and labeled. The fixing is done to conserve the plankton and stablish a ratio between microplastics and plankton. There are two ways of fixing the measures with etanol and with formol reduced at 4%. On board of a sailing boat the first one is discarded due to the big volume of etanol needed. While the second one a smaller quantity of formoll is 3

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic. needed. Since formol is sold reduced at 40% a first dilution should be done to get it at 4%. We use recipients of 100 ml, so for reducing it we will introduce 90ml of sea water and 10ml of formol at 40% obtaining formol at 4%. Then, the pieces of microplastics will be introduce in the recipient.

Once the samples are fixed a correct labeling has to be done for not mistaking measures. In every recipient of the samples should be written: name of the cruise followed by the year and month, number of sample, number of replicate and date. Hence, an example could be the next one: NAMICRO1812 1b 04/12/2018. This one would be the cruise North Atlantic Microplastics December 2018, first sample second replicate carried out the 04/12/2018.

After the fixing and labeling the samples should be stored in some place in the boat at temperature ambient and with no especial conditions.

This processing corresponds with the one carried out on board, a late one should be done in a laboratory.

OUR PROJECT

How the idea became

Sailing around the world is an idea that has been in our minds for a long time. And as the Atlantic is our home ocean and the one we most know, why not starting with it? This is how the idea of this trip started. Although, we thought sailing around the Atlantic on its own was a selfish goal. The main part of our crew is graduated in Sea Science and others ambient science, this means we know how explored and polluted our oceans are. Hence, we decided to take advantage of this trip and carry out some project to help our oceans.

By reading, searching and studying we got interested about plastic problem. Plastics are worldwide, even though in not habited places. After nearly half a century Scientifics advising about this problem, governments seem to become concerned and they have started to carry out some measures for reducing plastic waste. The absence of data of microplastic amounts on the oceans shows the need of monitoring microplastics worldwide. Hence, we thought this could be a suitable work for sailing vessels and we decided to demonstrate it with this trip. On board of “Big Shadow” we will travel from the coast of Senegal to the Caribbean along the North Atlantic measuring microplastics.

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

The boat

“Big Shadow” is a sailing boat of 10 m length and more than 3 m wide from 1982. The model is a Jeanneau Espace 1000. This vessel was bought by Juan García, its captain, with the intention of performing different social and ambient projects. Currently, the boat has participated in “water for Senegal” project together with “People of Hope” organization. And currently the organization “Seamar” is getting developed. “Seamar” tries to invite everyone who has a good project to carry out on board of a vessel to collaborate with us and perform it. It works as a base where people with good ideas can propose them and sail with us to develop them, forming part of the organization. This project will be the first one carried out by “Seamar”.

Figure 3. Drawing of the boat Jeanneau Espace 1000 and its principal characteristics. Image provided by “instructions and maintenance manual” from Jeanneau.

The area in study

The trip will start in December 2018 from Dakar, Senegal, to Cape Verde, the exact destination will depend on the weather and winds during the trip. Then, a stop in archipelago will be done for some weeks and on the beginning of February the second part of the trip will start, from Cape Verde to Caribbean, again the exact destination will be concreted by the weather. Therefore, the study area is the tropical North Atlantic Ocean.

The main currents that can be found on the surface water on this zone are the North Equatorial Current (NEC), North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC) and Guinea Dome (GD). NEC flows westward from north of Cape Verde islands to the Caribbean Sea. While NECC presents an eastward flowing along 8ᵒN. The Guinea Done is a cyclonic gyre south of Cape Verde. On the tropical South Atlantic Ocean, the South Equatorial Current (SEC) and the South Equatorial Countercurrent (SECC) are present. From 8ᵒN to 8ᵒS the large Ekman flow divergence of about 25 Sv (Roemminich, 1983) is compensated by an equatorial upwelling of 12 Sv approximately (Gouriou and and Reverdin, 1992). The Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC) is found in the lower part Tropical Surface Waters (TSW) and upper one of Central Waters (CW). Part of this current is the one which upwells (Stramma and Schott, 1999).

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

Figure 4. Schematic map showing the horizontal distribution of the major tropical currents for the Tropical Surface Water layer at about 0Ð¡ to 100 m depth northern fall. The currents shown are the North Equatorial Current (NEC), the Guinea Dome (GD), the North Equatorial Countercurrent (NECC), the Guinea Current (GC), the South Equatorial Current (SEC) with the northern (nSEC), equatorial (eSEC), central (cSEC) and southern (sSEC) branches, the Equatorial Undercurrent (EUC), the North Brazil Current (NBC), the Gabon-Congo Undercurrent (GCUC), the Angola Gyre (AG), the Angola Current (AC), the Angola Dome (AD), the South Equatorial Countercurrent (SECC) and the Brazil Current (BC). The Angola-Benguela Front (ABF) is included as a dashed line. The symbol u in a square marks possible areas of upwelling, but not the exact places. (Stramma and Svhott 1999).

In the tropical Atlantic, the seasonal variations are caused by the ocean-atmosphere interaction. This means the cycle of the surface currents is a response to the seasonally varying wind and the migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). The ITCZ localizes in northern positions from spring to summer (North Hemisphere seasons) than from fall to winter. This provokes the NEC to be strong during fall and summer. During winter, due to the trade winds from NE a southward flowing current together with an upwelling along African coast take place (Stramma and Schott, 1999).

In the open ocean, the abundance, distribution, spatial and temporal variability of plastics are not known. In the Norht East Atlantic, microplastic concentration has not been determined due to the lack of direct observations (Carpenter and Smith, 1972).

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

Figure 5. Schematic map of the North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre with its main surface currents (Putman and He, 2015).

Besides this lack of knowledge, we have a shy idea about what we can find in this zone. Highest plastic concentration is associated with large-scale subtropical convergence in the surface velocity field caused by Ekman current and geostrophic circulation (Law et al., 2010). This means, the accumulation takes place in the center of the subtropical gyres where the current velocities are slower. Therefore, in our study area we hope to find bigger concentration at northern latitudes. Another interest of knowing plastic distribution is their utility as large-scale mean surface currents tracer.

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

ATTHACED

Date:

Metheorological conditions:

Wind:

Waves:

Boat: Replicate Area START TIME START LAT START LONG TRANSECT (Nautical miles)

FINAL TIME FINAL LAT FINAL LONG

Replicate Area START TIME START LAT START LONG TRANSECT (Nautical miles)

FINAL TIME FINAL LAT FINAL LONG

Replicate Area START TIME START LAT START LONG TRANSECT (Nautical miles)

FINAL TIME FINAL LAT FINAL LONG

Observations:

Attached 1. Survey for the measurement of microplastics. In every sample one of this surveys should be filled.

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

REFERENCES

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Cole, M., Lindeque, P., Halsband, C. and Galloway, T. S.: Microplastics as contaminants in the marine environment: A review, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 62, 2588-2597, 2011.

Cozar, A., Echevarría, F., González-Gordillo, J. I., Irigoirn, X., Úbeda, B., Hernández- León, S., Palma, A. T., Navarro, S., García-de-Lomas, J., Ruiz, A., Fernández-de-Puelles, M. L. and Duarte C. M.: Plastic debris in the open ocean, PNAS, 111, 10239-10244, 2014.

Derraik. J. G. B.: The pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris: a review, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 44, 842-852, 2002.

Eriksen, M., Lebreton, L. C. M., Carson, H. S., Thiel, M., Moore, C. J., Borerro, J. C., Galgani, F., Ryan, P. G. and Reisser, J.: Plastic Pollution in the World’s Oceans: More than 5 Trillion Plastic Pieces Weighing over 250,000 Tons Afloat at Sea, PLoS ONE 9(12): e111913. Doi:10.1371/ joummal.pone.0111913, 2014.

Eriksen, M., Liboiooron, M., Kiessling, T., Charron, L., Alling, A., Lebreton, L., Richards, H., Roth, B., Ory, N. C., Hidalgo-Ruz, V., Meerhoff, E., Box, C., Cummis, A. and Thiel, M.: Microplastics sampling with the AVANI trawl compared to two trawls in the Bay of Bengal and South Pacific, Environmental Pollution, xxx, 1-10, 2017.

Gago, J., Henry, M. and Galgani, F.: First observation on neustonic plastic in waters off NW Spain (spring 2013 and 2014), Marine Environmental Research, 111, 27-33, 2015.

Gouriou, Y. and Reverdin, G.: Isopycnal and diapycnal circulation of the upper equatorial Atlantic Ocean in 1983-1984, Journal of Geophysical Research, 97, 3543- 3572, 1992.

Herrera, A., Garrido-Amador, P., Martínez, I., Samper, M. D., López-Martínez, J., Gómez, M. and Packard, T. T.: Novel methodology to isolate microplastics from vegetal-rich samples, Marine Pollution Bulletin, 129, 61-69, 2018.

Hidalgo-Ruz, V., Gutow L.hompson, R. C. and Thiel, M.: Microplastics in the Marine Environment: A Review of the Methods Used for Identification and Quantificaton, Environmental Science and Technology, 46, 3060-3075, 46, 2012.

Law, K. L., Morét-Ferguson, S., Maximenko, N. A., Proskurowski, G., Peacock, E. E., Hafner, J. and Reddy, C. M: Plastic Acumulation in the North Atlantic, Subtropical Gyre, Science, 329, 1185-1188, 2010.

Putman, N. F. and H, R.: Tracking the long-distance dispersal of marine organisms: sensitivity to ocean model resolution, Journal of the Royal Society, Interface 10: 20120979. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2012.0979, 2015

Sailing for the ocean, sampling microplastics along the North Atlantic.

Roemmich, D. H.: The balance of geostrophic and Ekman transports in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, Journal of Physical Oceanography, 13, 1534-1539, 1983.

Stramma, L. and Schott, F.: The mean flow field of the tropical Atlantic Ocean, Deep- Sea Research II, 46, 279-303, 1999.

Thompson, R. C., Olsen, Y., Mitchell, R. P., Davis, A., Rowland, S. J., John, A. W. G., McGoingle, D. and Russell, A. E.: Lost at Sea