CONCORD, N.H. — New research from the University of New Hampshire has found that some critical New Hampshire waters are littered with microplastics.
As the name suggests, microplastics are tiny pieces of plastic that have broken down to less than 5 millimeters, or roughly the size of a pencil’s eraser. They come from everyday consumer goods, everything from plastic water bottles to food containers, and even clothing that contains synthetic fibers can generate them.
Scientists are finding these microplastics to be pervasive. They’ve been found in all kinds of animals, in the environment, and in people. A study from May this year even found them in both human and dog testes. And there’s concern about the health impacts these tiny particles could have, although it is considered an emerging field of study.
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University of New Hampshire faculty researchers focused on three critical estuaries: Great Bay, Hampton-Seabrook, and the Great Marsh in Massachusetts.
They found that levels in the Great Bay Estuary, located in New Hampshire’s Seacoast, were much higher than Hampton-Seabrook and Great Marsh. In Great Bay, there were as many as 4,000 pieces of tiny plastic per cubic meter, while there were just 11 per cubic meter in the Hampton-Seabrook estuary, and around 1 per cubic meter in Great Marsh, according to researcher Bonnie Brown.
Estuaries are considered “nurseries of the sea” because they provide nesting and breeding grounds for many species.
Brown, a professor at the University of New Hampshire and the chair of the department of biological sciences, said the research is critical in establishing a baseline to understand the current state of the region’s waterways. “We needed to know how many microplastics are out there to begin with,” she said.
While Hampton-Seabrook and Great Marsh are close to the ocean where particles can get washed away, Great Bay is further upstream, where the water sticks around for longer. Knowing where microplastics are most concentrated is just an initial step to understanding their impacts.
One of Brown’s PhD students is studying whether oysters can purge microplastics from their system. “What people need to know is that anytime you use some plastic, it is going to go somewhere,” she said. “It does end up in our food and in us,” she said.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.