Tracking the 8,500 km Journey of Petroplastic Pollutants
ChE Assistant Professor Bryan James is the lead author of a new study on “Long-range transport of oil by marine plastic debris: Evidence from an 8500 km journey,” which was published in Environmental Science & Technology.
The research, highlighted by the American Chemical Society, provides the first direct evidence of oil pollution traveling over 8,500 km by hitchhiking on marine plastic. By matching oil found in Florida to the 2019 Brazil mystery spill, the study underscores the emergence of “petroplastics” and the role of plastic debris in facilitating the global, transequatorial spread of contaminants.
Abstract Source: ACS
Weathering processes typically restrict the distance spilled oil travels to a few hundred kilometers in the ocean. Leveraging oiled marine debris as “drifters of opportunity”, we tested the hypothesis of the unprecedented long-range (thousands of kilometers) transequatorial transport of oil adhered to marine debris by surface currents. Dispersion modeling backed by historical drift bottle experiments supported the plausibility for this hypothesis, and molecular forensics provided the definitive evidence proving it. Oil carried by marine debris arriving at Palm Beach, Florida in 2020 matched oil from the 2019 Brazil mystery oil spill, having traveled ∼8500 km in ∼240 days. We demonstrate an additive contaminant effect whereby plastic pollution facilitates the long-range transport of oil pollution. These findings underscore that regional inputs into the global ocean can have transboundary impacts.