Abstract
Microplastics had been collected at two sites namely Trou d’eau Douce (TD) and La Cambuse (LC) public beaches, lying in the east coast and south-east coast of Mauritius, respectively, over 6 months from September 2019 to February 2020. The sizes of the latter varied from 180 µm to 4 mm. A higher amount of microplastics collected/6-kg sand sample was recorded at LC. Two-way ANOVA revealed that (1) there was a considerable gap in the variability regarding quantity and size distribution of microplastics on the two beaches. The post-hoc analysis showed that the majority of the microplastics at LC were > 1.40 mm, whereas the smaller plastic fragments < 1.40 mm were more dominant at TD. (2) There was a significant interaction between location and event (p value = 0.025). The post-hoc analysis showed that the torrential rain hitting the island prior to sampling week 7 had decreased the microplastic counts at both TD and LC, but not significantly. Interestingly, the two hurricanes, prior to weeks 8 and 9, had appreciably reduced the microplastic counts at TD and, on the other hand, there was an increase in the amount of microplastics at LC, but not to a significant effect. The chemical nature (qualitative analysis) of microplastics was determined by density flotation and FTIR spectroscopy. Microplastics at TD were exclusively high-density polyethylene (HDPE) in origin, whereas, at LC, microplastics were both HDPE and polypropylene (PP) in origin.
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Acknowledgements
We are deeply grateful to the Faculty of Science of University of Mauritius for providing the necessary funding, logistics and technical support to carry out this important research work. In particular, we are also very thankful to Mr Yadav A. Imrit and Associate Professor R. Boojhawon for helping us with the statistical analysis and to the reviewers for their precious comments and suggestions.
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Boodhoo, K., Ramessur, R.T., Namah, O. et al. A quantitative and qualitative assessment of microplastics collected at two public beaches along the east and south-east coast of Mauritius. Environ Monit Assess 194, 640 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10269-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10269-4