Micro Plastics: Problems in Water Source Ecosystems
Keywords:
plastic, microplastic, water recourse ecosystem.Abstract
Synthetic plastics are made from organic and inorganic compounds such as carbon, silicon, hydrogen, oxygen, chloride, and heavy metals. The conversion of plastic into smaller sizes become micro-plastics. Microplastics are divided into two types. The first type is an element in cosmetics. These are scrub beads (microbeads) made of clothing fibers or from the plastics industry. These micro-plastics can be distributed to the environment by disposing of the waste directly from houses to water sources and flowing to seawater. The secondary type comes from commonly used plastic which tear due to factors such as light, moisture, energy from waves or sea creatures. Decomposition of plastics into small plastic scraps and accumulating residue cause problems and contamination to the water source ecosystem in the environment. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to show micro-plastic contamination in water source ecosystems based on the source of contamination problems that affect relationships in water ecosystems and the connection and relationship pathway in the water source ecosystem, which is an important factor in the survival of aquatic organisms. The water ecosystem consists of freshwater, brackish water, and saltwater that are diverse in biological resources of living things, such as aquatic plants, aquatic animals, topsoil, sediment, groundwater, microbes that it is contaminated with toxic substances and chemicals resulting from the accumulation of micro-plastic substances in the water. If there is no protection, management, control, and supervision, it will affect the organisms in the water sources. There may be more severe trends in the future and these trends will enable the use of this information as a guideline for planning, management, and prevention to be suitable for the water ecosystem and sustainability.
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