Marine Pollution Bulletin 156 (2020) 111220

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Marine Pollution Bulletin

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/marpolbul

Baseline

First evidence of microplastic pollution in the El Quetzalito sand beach of T

the Guatemalan Caribbean
Carlos Mazariegos-Ortíza,d,1, María de los Ángeles Rosalesb,d,1, Leonel Carrillo-Ovallea,d,1,
⁎
Renan Pereira Cardosoc,d,1, Marcelo Costa Munizc,d,1, Roberto Meigikos dos Anjosc,d, ,1
a
Centro de Estudios del Mar y Acuicultura, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Ciudad Universitaria, zona 12, Guatemala
b
Fundación Mundo Azul, Ciudad Cayalá, zona 16, Guatemala
c
Laboratório de Radioecologia e Alterações Ambientais (LARA), Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. Gal Milton Tavares de Souza, s/no, Gragoatá,
24210-346 Niterói, RJ, Brazil
d
Red de investigación de los Estresores Marino Costeros de Latinoamerica y el Caribe –REMARCO, Brazil

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In Guatemala, assessment of the impacts of microplastic pollution in marine and coastal protected areas has not
Plastic debris yet been carried out. Therefore, the main goal of this paper was to evaluate the abundance, composition,
Polymer identification physical forms, and the possible sources of plastic debris in the El Quetzalito Beach. The area was intended for
Microplastic characterization biodiversity conservation but has been excessively contaminated by plastic materials from land-based activities.
Marine protected area
The results state that plastic debris negatively impact the Caribbean coast of Guatemala and are released by
storm water and riverine transport from the Motagua River. With a high abundance of 279 items/m2 (30 items/
kg d.w.), composed mainly of polystyrene foam beads (66.8%) and polypropylene fragments (25.8%), the mi-
croplastic sources are the deterioration of large plastics. As these plastics are commonly used in industrial,
commercial, fishing, and household activities, these findings reinforce the need to improve effective sustainable
management actions of solid waste treatment and disposal in the Guatemalan cities.

Persistent solid materials in all shapes and sizes have been discarded
or abandoned in the marine environment, resulting in harmful effects
on marine biodiversity as well as on human health (Jambeck et al.,
2015; Pauly and Zeller, 2016; Geyer et al., 2017). Known as marine
litter, they are from a wide range of land- and sea-based activities and
are transported to the coastal environments by marine currents, winds,
rivers, storm water, and sewage, or are deliberately discarded by locals
and tourists on beaches and shores (IMO, 2018; Geyer et al.,
2017).Approximately 80% of the marine plastic litter comes from cities
with high population density and location near the coastline (Li et al.,
2016). If the treatment and disposal of solid waste are improperly done,
plastic debris can end up in the ocean. Indeed, Jambeck et al. (2015)
estimated that, in 2010, 192 coastal countries generated 275 million
MT of plastic material, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean.
Therefore, marine plastic litter has become so worrying that the sci-
entific community predicts that there may be more plastic debris than
fish, by weight, in the ocean by 2050 (Jambeck et al., 2015; Pauly and
Zeller, 2016; Geyer et al., 2017).
Once plastic litter enters coastal marine ecosystems, it undergoes
biotic and abiotic processes (Wang et al., 2016). Although the polymers
that make up their synthetic or semi-synthetic organic compounds have
high durability, plastic materials can be deteriorated by the actions of
ultraviolet rays, physical abrasion, and mechanic forces when exposed
to solar radiation and marine winds and currents (Barnes et al., 2009).
Beaches are therefore optimal environments for the breakdown of
plastic materials (Corcoran et al., 2009). They combine chemical and
mechanical weathering to promote the fragmentation of plastics, which
can then become of microscopic size and mix with the beach sand.
Microplastic (MP) refers to a plastic particle with a size range be-
tween 1 μm and 5 mm (Cole et al., 2011; Rocha-Santos and Duarte,
2015) and classified as primary or secondary according to its source.
Primary MP is from intentionally manufactured products with micro-
scopic size (such as microbeads and pellets), while secondary MP arises
from the deterioration of larger plastic debris (Cole et al., 2011; Rocha-
Santos and Duarte, 2017). Secondary MP usually has the shape of fi-
lament, fragment, fiber, sheet, irregular film, broken edge, and granule

⁎
Corresponding author at: Laboratório de Radioecologia e Alterações Ambientais (LARA), Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal Fluminense, Av. Gal Milton
Tavares de Souza, s/no, Gragoatá, 24210-346 Niterói, RJ, Brazil.
E-mail address: meigikos@mail.if.uff.br (R.M. dos Anjos).
1
http://remarco.cl

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2020.111220
Received 10 March 2020; Received in revised form 22 April 2020; Accepted 23 April 2020
Available online 01 May 2020
0025-326X/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Mazariegos-Ortíz, et al.
Fig. 1. Map of the study area showing the El Quetzalito beach, mouth of Motagua River, and sampling site.
(Rocha-Santos and Duarte, 2017). However, regardless of its shape, MP
can be mistaken for food or ingested accidentally by marine species
(marine mammal, seabird, sea turtle, fish, shellfish), including the
simplest single-celled organisms (zooplankton and other benthic or-
ganisms). As a result, microplastics (MPs) are dangerous threats to the
food supply chain, reaching various trophic levels including humans
(Hale et al., 2020), and are considered as an emergent problem with
negative impacts on the biota (Li et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2016; de Sá
et al., 2018). Therefore, MPs have become one of the most important
topics related to the main stressors in the marine environment (Barnes
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Marine Pollution Bulletin 156 (2020) 111220
et al., 2009; Cole et al., 2011; Thompson, 2019; Anjos et al., 2020).
In order to reduce the impact of human activities on marine sys-
tems, several countries have created marine protected areas (MPAs)
designated for the conservation of biodiversity (Luna-Jorquera et al.,
2019). Although the dumping of solid waste and sewage is prohibited,
the likelihood of finding the MPAs contaminated by marine plastic litter
is increasing (Luna-Jorquera et al., 2019; Hale et al., 2020). Micro-
plastics have been found in the Colombian Caribbean (Garcés-Ordóñez
et al., 2019), Panamanian (Borrero et al., 2020), and Spanish (Baztan
et al., 2014; Masiá et al., 2019) MPAs, and around the Baja California
C. Mazariegos-Ortíz, et al.
Fig. 2. Illustration of the Motagua River mouth and the solid waste transported
and deposited by it on the El Quetzalito beach.
Peninsula where there are several (Piñon-Colin et al., 2018) MPAs, for
instance. Therefore, it is important to find the contamination sources to
assist in the adoption of effective mitigation measures for the con-
servation of MPAs.
The Caribbean Sea is a semi-enclosed sea surrounded by Mexico, the
Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, and Central and South America. The
tourism activities here are exceptionally high and seem to have
Fig. 3. Microplastics from the El Quetzalito sand beach: (A) films; (B) and (C) fragments (rounded or subrounded, angular and subangular); (D) microspheres (e.g.,
additives for personal care products, such as shower gels and peelings); (E) pellets (cylinders, disks, spherules, flat, ovoid); and (F) Styrofoam.
3
Marine Pollution Bulletin 156 (2020) 111220
considerable importance for the socioeconomic sector of the Caribbean
countries (Mackay and Spencer, 2017). In recent years, plastic debris
became a critical environmental issue in the MPAs in Honduras and
Guatemala, and, currently, it is a serious concern that both countries
are trying to solve. Plastic litter comes mainly from the cities which
dispose trash that is washed out from overcrowded city dumps and
unofficial landfills hundreds of miles upstream of the Motagua River
(Fig. 1). Although plastic litter (Fig. 2) can also affect tourism activities,
there is no significant information about microplastic pollutants in their
MPAs (do Sul and Costa, 2007; Bosker et al., 2018; Monteiro et al.,
2018; Rose and Webber, 2019; Borrero et al., 2020).
This paper aims to evaluate the abundance and main characteristics
of microplastics from the El Quetzalito Beach in Guatemala's Caribbean
coast (Fig. 1).It is an MPA that has been excessively contaminated by
plastic materials from the Motagua River. Therefore, our specific ob-
jective is to bring up-to-date information about the possible plastic
debris sources to improve effective sustainable management actions in
the Caribbean territories with a view toward conserving marine-coastal
ecosystems in good environmental quality.
The community of the El Quetzalito (highlighted in Fig. 1) is located
75 km northeast of Puerto Barrios, Izabal, Guatemala. It is part of the
Guatemalan national protected areas, called Refugio de Vida Silvestre
Punta de Manabique (RVSPM). With a size of about 1500 km2, the
RVSPM is one of the most important marine resources in the country
because it encompasses coral reefs, seagrasses, freshwater rivers,
broadleaved forests, and mangroves. The coastal area has originated
from both volcanic and coralline materials brought by the Motagua
River currents and reworked by actions of winds and ocean currents
(FUNDARY, 2006). The community of the El Quetzalito has 275 in-
habitants that are engaged in fishing and agricultural activities (Areano,
2018). Despite the El Quetzalito community having a low population
density and being far away from industrial activities, it is strongly af-
fected by marine plastic litter. Therefore, the sampling strategy adopted
was to choose sites inside this protected area (15° 44′ 52.3″ N, 88° 16′
C. Mazariegos-Ortíz, et al.
Fig. 4. Distributions of shape and color categories of MPs found in the El
Quetzalito Beach.
Fig. 5. Typical mid-infrared spectra from the MP debris observed in the El
Quetzalito Beach. The black line represents the mean spectra of all MP samples
with the polymer category and the gray shade represents the standard devia-
tion.
11.1″ W) based on the presence of plastic debris and on accessibility
(Fig. 1).
Sand samples from the El Quetzalito beach were collected near the
mouth of the Motagua River, by using a protocol for sampling and
analysis of microplastics on sandy beaches developed in the IAEA/
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Marine Pollution Bulletin 156 (2020) 111220
RLA7022 Project for a standardized sampling in the Latin American and
Caribbean region. This protocol was based on the method designed by
Sagawa et al. (2018). A 100 m horizontal transect on the high tide line,
divided into five equidistant points, was established. In each point, a
quadrant of 0.25 m2 (50 cm × 50 cm) was delimited. The superficial
layer of 1.0 cm thickness was collected by using a stainless-steel spa-
tula, obtaining about 2.5 L of damp sand. Each one of the five sand
samples was stocked in aluminum trays and once at the laboratory, they
were dried at 60 °C until the weight remained constant. The dry weight
(d.w.) was determined by taking aliquots every 24 h. Although the
microplastic size range is defined between 1 μm and 5 mm, in this
study, MP debris was considered as particles ranging between 1 mm
and 5 mm due to methodological limitations (our ATR-FTIR system can
produce good analyses in this size range). Therefore, the total volume of
dry sand was sieved using 1 mm and 5 mm meshes to obtain the phy-
sical characterization of the MP debris fraction. The material retained
in the 5 mm mesh was discarded. MP particles were obtained by the
density separation process using a NaCl saturated solution (1.2 g/cm3)
and subsequently dried at 60 °C until their weights remain constant
(Hidalgo-Ruz et al., 2012; Kovač Viršek et al., 2016).
For physical characterization (Fig. 3), the microplastics were vi-
sually quantified and classified by shape and color categories using a
stethoscope (Premier, model SMZ-05). The proportional quantities can
be seen in Fig. 4. The chemical characterization of the MPs was per-
formed at the Laboratory of Radioecology and Environmental Change
(LARA-UFF) applying the mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) technique.
An attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR)
spectrometer, with an ATR holder in a Tensor II Fourier transform
spectrometer (Bruker Optics Inc., Ettlingen, DE), was used. Wavelength
spectra were recorded in the mid-infrared range (400–4000 cm−1). For
each spectrum, 16 scans at a resolution of 4 cm−1 were combined. The
absorption bands of each spectrum were compared to the literature
(Jung et al., 2018). Typical mid-infrared spectra from the MPs debris
observed in the El Quetzalito Beach are shown in Fig. 5. Analysis of 30
representative microplastic samples from the shape category sets re-
sulted in the identification of only three polymer types: polystyrene
(PS), polypropylene (PP), and polyethylene (PE).
A total of 349 plastic debris were collected in the El Quetzalito re-
sulting in 279 items/m2, 30 items/kg d.w., 1.92 g of items/m2, and
0.21 g of items/kg d.w. Foamed debris was the most abundant type
(64.5%), followed by fragments (20.6%) and pellets (11.2%).
Microspheres (2.3%) and films (1.4%) presented the smallest con-
tributions to the sample set.
Within the foam category (expanded polystyrenes and ethyl vinyl
acetate, among others), Styrofoam is the most abundant and can be
considered as a secondary microplastic. It is commonly used in various
industrial, commercial, fishing, and household activities, such as
packaging, disposable cups, food containers, buoys, and construction
materials. Based on the MP sources, one can suggest that pellets and
microspheres may have originated from the central part of Guatemala
or in the northeast cities near the Motagua River. In turn, fragment and
film debris arise from the most diverse industrial, commercial, and
household activities (Rocha-Santos and Duarte, 2015; Anjos et al.,
2020).
According to Fig. 4, it is possible to observe that most plastic debris
found in the El Quetzalito Beach has a white or transparent color.
Brandon et al. (2016) have suggested that clear visual evidence of an
increase in opacity and yellowness in plastic debris indicates its longer
exposure time in the marine environments. Therefore, white and
transparent colors of pellet, microsphere, film, and foam particles
suggest that these are new and arise from local or nearby sources.
The correlations between the shape and polymer categories used to
describe MP appearance are shown in Fig. 6.The highest percentage
identified was PS (66.8%), followed by PP (25.8%) and PE (7.4%). PS
corresponded mainly to Styrofoam material in the visual characteriza-
tion and is in accordance with its main applications (Rocha-Santos and
C. Mazariegos-Ortíz, et al.
Fig. 6. Distributions of shape and polymer categories of MPs found in the El
Quetzalito Beach.
Duarte, 2015). This polymer type was previously reported to cause
toxicity in zebrafish (Jin et al., 2018), being transferred from Mytilus
edulis and Carcinus maenas via the trophic chain (Farrell and Nelson,
2013). PP is often used to make packaging, bottle caps, ropes, carpets,
laboratory equipment, and drinking straws, while PE is used in super-
market bags and plastic bottles. PE and PP are the main polymers used
in the manufacture of microbeads or pellets (cylinders, discs, spherules,
flat, ovoid; Rocha-Santos and Duarte, 2015).PS, PP, and PE are the most
abundant polymers found in many other coastal marine studies
(Claessens et al., 2011; Wessel et al., 2016; Karthik et al., 2018; Sagawa
et al., 2018; Simon-Sánchez et al., 2019). Anjos et al. (2020) and
Borrero et al. (2020) have also observed these same polymer species as
the main microplastic pollutants found in the LAC countries.
Although the El Quetzalito Beach is in an environmentally protected
area, a high abundance of 279 items/m2 (characterized mainly by
secondary MPs) was found. Similar results were found in Panamanian
MPAs, such as Punta Galeta (294 items/m2; Borrero et al.,
2020).However, protected areas in Tasajera and Buenavista, Ciénaga
Grande de Santa Marta, Colombia, show values about 10 times higher
than the El Quetzalito Beach (Garcés-Ordóñez et al., 2019). In all these
MPAs, rivers were the main sources of plastic debris. Riverine plastic
litter was deposited to both sides of the river mouths on coastal bea-
ches, and its abundance generally declined with distance from the river
mouth. The lack of proper treatment and disposal of solid waste favored
the presence of typical household waste polymers, such as PS, PP, and
PE. Therefore, the findings are of great importance to assist in the in-
troduction of more effective sustainable management actions in the
coastal-marine ecosystems of Guatemala, which can be achieved
through regulations and monitoring based on scientific knowledge. In
addition, it is important to continue this study, assessing how plastic
debris is being distributed along the Guatemalan coast due to the ac-
tions of wind and coastal currents. The Caribbean coast, with its com-
plex hydrodynamic structures and interactions with tides, river plumes,
and currents, plays an important role in the transport of the marine
litter (Zhang et al., 2017). However, it is already possible to point out
the extreme need to create sustainable plastic waste management ac-
tions to prevent/mitigate the entry of plastic waste to coastal marine
ecosystems of Guatemala.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Carlos Mazariegos-Ortíz:Conceptualization, Methodology,
5
Marine Pollution Bulletin 156 (2020) 111220
Investigation, Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
editing.María de los Ángeles Rosales:Conceptualization,
Methodology, Investigation, Writing - review & editing.Leonel
Carrillo-Ovalle:Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - review &
editing.Renan Pereira Cardoso:Conceptualization, Methodology,
Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft.Marcelo
Costa Muniz:Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Investigation, Writing - original draft.Roberto Meigikos dos
Anjos:Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Supervision,
Project administration, Writing - original draft, Writing - review &
editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study was part of the project RLA7022, supported by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). We thank the young
people of the El Quetzalito who collaborated in the sampling stage of
this research. The Brazilian authors would like to thank the funding
agencies for their financial support for performing ATR-FTIR analysis:
CNPq (302112/2018-9), FAPERJ (E-26/202.794/2017), and CAPES
(88887.353731/2019-00).
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