The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has launched a four-year coordinated research project to study microplastics in seafood.
Microplastics – microscopic pieces of plastic waste from a range of sources – have been a significant topic for the seafood industry as more research emerges about the near ubiquitous presence of the form of pollution in food. Studies have found microplastics in a range of seafood products, including a study that found contaminants in oysters in the eastern Andaman Sea of Myanmar and another that found microplastics in nearly all tested seafood samples on the U.S. West Coast.
Other research has shown microplastics are present in seafood and other types of protein – with little differences in concentration between seafood, plant-based proteins, and terrestrial meats.
The IAEA said its new study is designed to help improve global microplastics monitoring and enhance global understanding of how microplastic pollution affects seafood and human health.
“Around 3.1 billion people worldwide rely on seafood as a source of protein. But, increasing plastic waste – and the resulting microplastic pollution – poses a growing threat to the global seafood supply,” the IAEA said in a release.
The IAEA said microplastics can come from a range of sources, including synthetic fibers used in clothing and industrial processes, and can measure as small as 1 micron in size. The tiny particles have been found all over the world and throughout the world’s oceans, where organisms inevitably ingest them.
Many of those organisms are then consumed by people, where those tiny particles can enter the human body.
“Microplastics can cause physical damage and act as carriers for harmful chemicals, viruses, and bacteria, making their impact even more dangerous,” the IAEA said. “This contamination not only threatens seafood production and fisheries but also risks consumer health, potentially limiting access to safe and nutritious food.”
The IAEA cited the recent study of West Coast seafood – which found that 99 percent of the seafood samples tested contained microplastics – as a motivator to enhance monitoring of microplastic presence in seafood.
The IAEA said its new study will utilize nuclear techniques that can enhance the detection and analysis of microplastics and also promote harmonized monitoring protocols worldwide that can help scientists collect better data on the extent of the problem.
“While standardized methods for analyzing microplastics in seawater, beach sand and sediment are becoming well-established, harmonized methods for monitoring and analyzing microplastics in seafood or complex marine biological matrices still require development,” IAEA said. “One major challenge is extracting small microplastics from tissue of marine organisms without damaging the particles, as the chemicals used in the process can degrade them and compromise the analysis and data.”
The coordinated research project has multiple overall objectives, including the development of a harmonized analytical protocol to identify microplastics in seafood – starting with mussels as a baseline. That baseline will then be extended to other types of seafood like shrimp and fish.
“Both goals will help generate the actionable, scientific knowledge needed to develop the evidence-based regulatory measures to protect marine ecosystems and human health,” IAEA said.
More specific objectives include creating new methods to extract microplastics from seafood, gain an understanding of the distribution and types of microplastics in seafood, and develop new techniques to track the levels and sources of microplastics in marine organisms.
The IAEA said it is now open for proposals from research institutions interested in joining the coordinated research project.
