With mass production, use and waste of plastics, contamination of plastics has been found in lands, seas, rivers and lakes. Among plastic debris with different size, microplastics (size &lt; 5 mm) have a small size and are easy to be uptaken by organisms and transferred via food chain to the higher trophic level (<i>e.g.</i>, human). Accordingly, microplastics have received global concerns and become an emerging field of study. Many studies have found that microplastics were distributed in large numbers in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. Taiwan is one of the leading manufacturers and users of plastic products in the world today, but lack of studies determined microplastics contamination in different environments in Taiwan. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate occurrence of microplastics in river water and sediments from upstream, midstream and downstream of an urbanized river, Fengshan River, in southern Taiwan. The collected samples were sieved through two different mesh sieves (5 mm and 50 um mesh sieves), respectively. The sieved materials with the sizes between 50 um and 5 mm were collected and then subjected to density separation in zinc chloride solution (density: 1.8 g/cm<sup>3</sup>) to isolate the microplastic debris through flotation. The floating microplastic debris were filtered and identified under a dissecting microscope. The results show that microplastics were detected in all water and sediment samples collected in Fengshan River. Relatively high concentrations of microplastics were found in the downstream of Fengshan River. It reflected that many microplastics were transported into the ocean (the Taiwan Strait) by this river. Considerable amounts of treated and untreated domestic and industrial wastewater were continuingly discharged into Fengshan River and could be the major sources of microplastics in this river.

Spatial distribution of microplastics in water and sediments from an urbanized river, Taiwan

2019 Spring National Meeting

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