CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Microplastics pollution

Degradation of water quality is a major challenge faced by humanity in twenty first

century. Apart from degradation of marine water quality, pollution dealing with freshwater
resources such as lakes, rivers and groundwater are more susceptible to diverse synthetic and
natural pollutant. Pollution is introduction of contaminant or pollutant into the environment
until such an extent present condition cannot be longer used for specific purposes (Owa,
2013). Newly emerging pollutants as personal care products, pharmaceutical, pesticides and
household items posed new water quality challenge thus, decreasing the availability of world
water resource with an unknown long- term effects on human health and environment. In
fact, climate changes occurred with developing industrial revolution posed a new threat in
water security and delayed sustainable development of the future (UNESCO, n.d.). Plastics
which also considered as pollutants in which dispersion of plastic waste have been found to
be an alarming issue due to its persistency, complexity and effects on water ecosystems.

With global increment of plastic production annually, numerous plastics are being
released and dumped during the life cycle. In the end, global plastic production have caused
enormous global plastic pollution either towards land, air or water based. . Unfortunately,
50% of these plastic products were manufactured to be disposable, thus generating tonnes of
plastic waste every year (Fok & Cheung, 2015).The issues have not been receiving any
serious concern until the term “microplastics” was projected by (Thompson et al., 2004).
Since then, pollution caused by microplastics (MPs) has become a great interest with
increasing amount of relevant article published regarding source, abundance, fate and their
occurrence in environment (Karbalaei et al., 2018).
 MPs are generally defined as solid polymers and water insoluble particles typically
present in abundant plastic debris of less than < 5mm in size (Koelmans et al., 2019). With
numerous variety of polymer, chemical composition, size and shape of plastic debris will
varies significantly in different environment. They are classified into their shape of fragment,
pellet fiber, film, styrofoam (Strungaru et al., 2019) and by the size of macroplastics (>20mm
in diameter) and mesoplastics (2-20mm) depending on different national guideline
recommendation (Ryan et al., n.d.). To further understand size of plastics, Van Sebille &
Spathi (2016) explained on mega, macro and mesoplastics can be identified with naked eye
and mostly present in large volumes (e.g: wrapper, drink container ,plastic bag, personal
hygiene etc.) ranging in size of few metres down to 5mm. They also explained although
nanoplastics (<100nm) are the least understood matter, they are potentially being the most
toxic compared to other.

Plastic debris have become so pervasive and ubiquitous with an estimated value of 10
million tonnes of plastic leakage each year into the oceans. With low recycling rates and
heavy reliance on plastic products recorded, this has worsen the condition considering major
threat to wildlife and human wellbeing (Billard & Boucher, 2019). Plastic pollutions are
crucial global environmental issue given its durability and stability in environment.
Persistency, a typical feature of plastics pose longer time for degradation process that may
take years up to centuries. In relation to this, plastic resistant to degradation are more likely
providing them an interaction with another substance. This would increase the formation of
plastic-pollutant mixtures providing them as the “vehicle”. In addition, the diversity of plastic
pollution with widely type used including polyethane, polypropylene, polyvinylchloride, etc.
results in difficulty to propose a standard and unified analytical method for identification (Li
et al., 2020). The greatest concern involving plastic pollution is that these microplastics can
directly posed a great threat to marine wildlife by entering the food web thus indirectly affect
human as the consumers (Wright et al., 2013). Amounts of microplastics litter were predicted
to increase significantly, leading to accumulation and deposition in coastal and marine
environments (Bergmann et al., 2015).
1.2 Problem Statement

Anthropogenic factor were the main causes for formation of microplastics and
dominantly recorded sources of pollution are from land-based. Approximately about 80% of
microplastic pollution originate from the land and river serve as the dominant pathway before
it were distributed throughout the globe (Rochman, 2018). The distribution of MPs into
aquatic environment involved both primary sources (facial-cleansing products, cosmetic
preparation, plastic-based industries) and secondary source (macro plastic degradation to
micro plastic as a respond to chemical and physical effects) (Wang et al., 2016). Over time,
concern arise because plastic debris are subjected to the phase of fragmentation and will
continuously to do so depending on the condition its resides in .These plastics disintegration
were under the reaction of physical (mechanical) and chemical process (ultraviolet,
mechanical abrasion) and their rate depend on their polymer type (Song et al., 2017). Single
use of plastic merchandise and improper handling of its waste have subjected the physical
body to chemical ingredients endured by the plastic itself. Due to continuous fragmentation
and durability property, they remain in the environment for hundreds to thousands of years
thus, leading to exponential growth in numbers(Bouwmeester et al., 2015).

Besides, water safety was also a great issue concern in study of microplastics in which
studies reported the existence of microplastics in bottled water and tap water (Danopoulos et
al., 2020). Ingestion as low as <1.5 µm to human could overcome the gut barrier and be
translocate to other organs in the body. Global concern regarding MPs accumulation in
environment will keep on increasing due to increasing amount of annual plastic deposition
into the aquatic environment. The most concern issue pointed out by (Barnes et al., 2009)
was choking and entanglement of wildlife towards MPs. MPs were mistaken as a food source
by aquatic organism because of size similarity that was as close as the plankton (Fok &
Cheung, 2015). These MPs indirectly posed a great threat towards human health as it goes up
the food web. On the other hand, study by (Brennecke et al., 2016) proved that MPs could
also act as a vector for heavy metal contamination in aquatic environment. This would
worsen the condition as MPs was readily bioavailable in the environment. In the riverine
environment, concentration of MPs were expected to be higher than the ocean which were
due to factor that it was closer to anthropogenic activities, wastewater discharge, farming,
aquaculture, agriculture, runoff, population density etc.
 Because of its resilience, light weight and high accessibility, the variation of plastic
applications within the industry benefitted the world's largest population. Throughout the
decades, plastics have replaced glass in the general public health sector, food packaging,
personal care products, textile, and etc Although plastics contribute remarkable societal
benefits, the downsides include unsustainable use, low recycling rate and improper waste
management have cause a massive population of plastic waste in the natural environment.
Despite the ubiquity of literature reported on MPs in coastal and oceans environment, there is
lack of information exists of problem regarding MPs in freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater
and terrestrial environment believed to be the origin and were the largest waterways as a
transport medium of plastic to oceans. Hence, there is a need to further explore the
consequence of a microplastic can cause in different environment in order to maintain a
sustainable environment to all living things.

1.3 Objectives

Recent study aims to focus on characterization of microplastics heterogeneity in Asian

freshwater using multivariate statistical analysis approach. The researcher objectives for the
study were listed as below:

1. To evaluate the heterogeneity of datasets using unsupervised pattern recognition

namely cluster analysis.
2. To evaluate the heterogeneity relationship the abundance of microplastics using
principal component analysis and factor analysis.
3. To isolate the latent factor controlling the abundance of microplastics using
discriminant analysis.
1.4 Significant of the study

In order to understand the pattern of microplastics distribution around Asian

freshwater, researcher need to perform a statistical analysis which displays current
environmental status in the study area. This study will provide baseline information on
microplastic abundances, pattern, type, distribution based on the location and human activity
around the freshwater region. With a profound study, a new or existing issue concern can be
identified based on microplastics abundance in certain region. In fact, although significant
total number of studies have been carried out to evaluate total of microplastic in river, this
study will become the first work reporting on microplastic abundance and risk assessment
evaluation around Asia river continent.

With ubiquitous amount of plastic waste been generated in 2010 as high as 275
million metric ton in most coastal country with 4.8 to 12.7 million metric ton were said to
enter the ocean, population size and mismanaged waste management could further worsen the
condition by 2025. In addition, the main use of plastic resin in packaging sector have
increased its proportion in municipal solid waste by an order of magnitude year by year due
to one-time use (Jambeck et al., 2015). Hence, it is allowed to hold an opinion of plastic
residue to be a concrete source of anthropogenic marker. As anthropogenic activities have
been said to be the main cause of plastic litter accumulation, it is said that plastic can be
grouped as not only anthropogenic marker but also as “civilization marker” for future
generation. This is proved by formation of plastiglomerates (melted plastic on stone) along
shorelines, beach sediment, corals and also lava fragments (Corcoran et al., 2014) in which
this microplastics also cause intervention to rock environment as well as freshwater.
Furthermore, plastic use are dominance within human population in which consumer uses
plastic materials as their daily life items which persist in environment and got carried away
causing atmospheric fallout. Another source includes tourism and fishery activities,
wastewater effluent, industrial discharge, etc. of which were major source ended up in
freshwater region (Fahrenfeld et al., 2019).