Microplastics (MPs) contaminate the oceans from the poles to the equators and from the sea surface to the deep sea. In addition, MPs have been recorded in freshwater systems, including in lakes, rivers and streams globally. Not only an aquatic issue, MPs infiltrate terrestrial ecosystems in landfills, agricultural settings, along beaches, and even in the air. It therefore comes as no surprise that MPs have been identified as a global pollutant of concern that is capable of long-range transport and causing adverse effects in wildlife, but limited information is available for Canadian Arctic regions. Consequently, the NCP has identified assessing the presence and distribution of MPs in Arctic marine ecosystems a priority. The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) has also added Marine Plastics and MPs to their list of Chemicals of Emerging Arctic Concern.
We collected water, sediment and zooplankton for MPs in the summer of 2019 as a part of ArcticNet from on board the CCGS Amundsen. Additional water and sediment samples were collected from the R/V William Kennedy in western Hudson Bay and Chesterfield Inlet as a part of GENICE. Water samples were collected by bucketing surface water and filtered through a polycarbonate filter that captured the microplastics. Sediment samples were collected from push cores in a box corer, the top 0-5cm was collected. Zooplankton samples were collected from Tucker Nets using 250um mesh size and then speciated. All samples were distributed to collaborators at Universities of Toronto, McGill and Western Ontario for further processing and analysis. Analysis will be done by FTIR and/or Raman Spectroscopy.
