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Abstract

Aquaculture is an increasingly important source of nutrition for global food security, which is reliant on animal- and plant-based feeds. Anthropogenic particles, including microplastics and semi-synthetic cellulosic fibres, are prolific marine pollutants that are readily consumed by marine organisms, including small pelagic fish commonly used in fishmeal. Conversely, there is no indication plants can accumulate anthropogenic microparticles. We explore whether aquaculture feed presents a route of contamination for farmed fish. Commercially-sourced aquaculture feedstocks, including fishmeals and soybean meal, were processed (KOH digestion and ZnCl2 density separation) and anthropogenic particles characterised using microscopy and spectroscopic methods. Both fishmeal and soybean meals contained anthropogenic particles, with concentrations ranging 1070–2000 particles kg−1. The prevalence of anthropogenic particles in plant-based feeds indicates that the majority of contamination occurs post-harvest. Based on our findings, farmed Atlantic salmon may be exposed to a minimum of 1788–3013 anthropogenic particles from aquaculture feed across their commercial lifespan.

Publication Date

2022-12-01

Publication Title

Marine Pollution Bulletin

Volume

185

Issue

Part A

ISSN

0025-326X

Acceptance Date

2022-09-26

Deposit Date

2022-03-11

Embargo Period

2022-11-04

Funding

CW was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council through the EnvEast Doctoral Training Partnership (grant number NE/L002582/1). MC and PL would like to acknowledge funding from the UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) funded project ‘Reducing plastic waste in the Galapagos and Eastern Pacific’ (grant number NE/V005413/1).

Keywords

Fishmeal, Microplastic, Microfibre, Cellulose, Aquaculture, Plastic pollution

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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