Microplastic ingested by Anchoviella commersoni in Three Regencies of South Sulawesi Indonesia
Rina Masadah, Imam Hermansyah, Farid Abdurrahman, Junaidy Tahir, Akbar Yowantono

Faculty of Medicine Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Indonesia

Abstract

Plastic pollution has been identified to increase over the past decades globally, and it has been found the mismanagement of plastic waste from landfills to rivers and oceans. Plastic degradation in water by microorganisms results in microparticles (microplastics) of < 5mm that are similar size to underwater biotas and could be ingested by fish and many other ocean creatures. It has been known that microplastic contains several dangerous materials include toxins, carcinogens, pathogens, that obviously accumulates in sea creatures body. Anchoviella commersoni is a type of fish that is widely found in shallow water, in almost all coastal areas in Indonesia. It is people^s food because they are cheap with high nutritional content. This fish is very popular in South Sulawesi province of Indonesia, which mostly cities and regencies located at coastal areas. This study identified microplastics in Anchoviella commersoni, in three regencies of Sulawesi, that are Maros, Pangkep, Barru, that located next to each other along South Sulawesi coast. We analysed 16 of Anchoviella commersoni for each regency by KOH identification method. We found a total 155 microplastic particles distributed in bowels, body, and head of those fishes, in which the most particles were found in bowels (66 particles), and we observed that Pangkep^s (that located between Maros and Barru) Anchoviella commersoni has the most microplastics found among the three regencies. This finding showed that microplastics have been identified in South Sulawesi fishes and these results should be an important data for people and governments to improve the management of plastic waste in order to prevent human diseases that could occur from microplastics.

Keywords: Microplastic, Anchoviella commersoni, Indonesia

Topic: Aquatic Pollution and Ecotoxicology (International)