Marine Litter and microplastics
I feel privileged to work with colleagues and collaborators who really want to make a difference when it comes to marine litter and microplastics studies...
A few years ago, in 2018, I was proposed – and accepted - to chair a discussion organized by the British Chamber of Commerce Singapore (BritCham) , Institute of Marine Engineering, Science & Technology (IMarEST) and National Parks Board in Singapore. The discussion was about shipping and plastics/marine litter in the environment. We listed potential sources and ways to decrease such pollutions (including through ideas about MARPOL Annex IV and V – but also how BWMS could potentially be used to “sample” the environment in different ports where sampling by research teams can be particularly dangerous [Steering towards an industry level response to marine plastic pollution (imarest.org)]). The dynamism and interest from the attendees of this first event provided me with the enthusiasm necessary to organize a roundtable on plastics in aquaculture a couple of years later. The conclusions from these rich discussions were reported in the WAS magazine and on IMarEST website (World Aquaculture Society | Plastics in Aquaculture – The WAS-IMarEST Roundtables - World Aquaculture Society).
At SGS ,?we have been sampling and analyzing plastic in a vast number of projects for more than a decade. We have used this global experience as well as collaboration from academia to implement methods especially applicable for the analysis of environmental microplastics (and marine litter). Necessarily, this comes as a response to our clients who showed a strong commitment in the management of plastics at their facilities as well as their desire to understand more on how microplastics produced from their activities could reach and impact negatively the surrounding ecosystems.
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Internal validations and QA-QC procedures have been implemented to analyze particles from very small (6.25micrometer) to large items (marine litter) and have allowed our fantastic team in SGS Singapore to get accreditation under ISO 17025 for such activities (sampling and analysis). Some data consolidated from an investigation at an aquaculture farm were also presented by Dr Huajuan Mo at the World Aquaculture Society Meeting in December 2022 in Singapore.
#plastic #microplastic #marinelitter #singapore…