Citizen scientists from Westport Aquarium in Washington state, USA, and Galway Atlantaquaria have collaborated on a project to raise awareness about microplastics.
Named “SeaLegs”, the project involved monitoring local water sources for microplastic litter.
From early summer, this year, the trawl teams from Ireland and America were tasked to select a local water source and check for microplastics.
The SeaLegs devices were made from recycled and upcycled materials, and the trawls took place in areas including the Humptulips River and Grays Harbour in Washington state and Galway Bay.
"Kayakers and fishermen and many other water enthusiasts wondered why we were pulling a pair of baby leggings through the local waterways"
Garry Kendellen, of Galway Atlantaquaria said, “I loved meeting people during the trawls, the tights in the water were a great conversation starter, and I was able to talk about Clean Coasts volunteering and the problems of microplastics”.
Trawls took place in areas including the Humptulips River and Grays Harbour in Washington state and Galway Bay as part of "SeaLegs" microplastics monitoring
“The aquarium has been involved in many projects like this, but this one was really special and thought-provoking,” he said.
Six trials were conducted by the teams. It was agreed that even if the trawls were unsuccessful in their goal of capturing litter and microplastics, they would still be a conversation starter about litter, marine litter, water rights, social behaviour, litter collection/disposal, biodiversity, and citizen science.
Katherine Myrsell, director of Westport Aquarium, said: “Kayakers and fishermen and many other water enthusiasts wondered why we were pulling a pair of baby leggings through the local waterways.”
“After deploying the SeaLegs, there was a lot of work to sort and sieve the samples.
After a day of collecting samples, we had to sift through the mass of organic matter and find microplastics,” she said.
“This was no easy feat as microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm (0.20 in) in length. The trawl teams had very limited quality microscopes, so it was a painstaking process to sort the samples,” she said.
“After much scanning and sifting, we were able to identify microplastics in almost every trawl. The fibres we discovered could not be confused with anything organic as they were blue, white, and red in colour,” she said.
The findings are in the SeaLegs Project Report
Summary Findings, including team details and a link to the SeaLegs Plastic Survey are here
Videos from the project are here
