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Half-life of biodegradable plastics in the marine environment depends on material, habitat, and climate zone

Christian Lott, Andreas Eich, Dorothée Makarow, Boris Unger, Miriam van Eekert, Els Schuman, Marco Segre Reinach, Markus T. Lasut, Miriam Weber
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.31.429013
Christian Lott
1HYDRA Marine Sciences GmbH, Bühl, Germany
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  • For correspondence: c.lott@hydramarinesciences.com
Andreas Eich
1HYDRA Marine Sciences GmbH, Bühl, Germany
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Dorothée Makarow
2HYDRA Fieldwork, Sulzburg, Germany
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Boris Unger
2HYDRA Fieldwork, Sulzburg, Germany
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Miriam van Eekert
3LeAF BV, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Els Schuman
3LeAF BV, Wageningen, The Netherlands
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Marco Segre Reinach
4Coral Eye Outpost, Pulau Bangka, Sulawesi Utara, Indonesia
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Markus T. Lasut
5Sam Ratulangi University UNSRAT, Manado, Sulawesi Utara, Indonesia
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Miriam Weber
1HYDRA Marine Sciences GmbH, Bühl, Germany
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Abstract

The performance of the biodegradable plastic materials polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), polybutylene sebacate (PBSe) and polybutylene sebacate co-terephthalate (PBSeT), and of polyethylene (LDPE) was assessed under marine environmental conditions in a three-tier approach. Biodegradation lab tests (20 °C) were complemented by mesocosm tests (20 °C) with natural sand and seawater and by field tests in the warm-temperate Mediterranean Sea (12 – 30 °C) and in tropical Southeast Asia (29 °C) in three typical coastal scenarios. Plastic film samples were exposed in the eulittoral beach, the pelagic open water and the benthic seafloor and their disintegration monitored over time. We used statistical modelling to predict the half-life for each of the materials under the different environmental conditions to render the experimental results numerically comparable across all experimental conditions applied. The biodegradation performance of the materials differed by orders of magnitude depending on climate, habitat and material and revealed the inaccuracy to generically term a material ‘marine biodegradable’. The half-life t0.5 of a film of PHA with 85 μm thickness ranged from 54 d on the seafloor in SE Asia to 1247 d in mesocosm pelagic tests. t0.5 for PBSe (25 μm) ranged from 99 d in benthic SE Asia to 2614 d in mesocosm benthic tests, and for PBSeT t0.5 ranged from 147 d in the mesocosm eulittoral to 797 d in Mediterranean benthic field tests. For LDPE no biodegradation could be observed. These data can now be used to estimate the persistence of plastic objects should they end up in the marine environments considered here and will help to inform the life cycle (impact) assessment of plastics in the open environment.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted February 01, 2021.
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Half-life of biodegradable plastics in the marine environment depends on material, habitat, and climate zone
Christian Lott, Andreas Eich, Dorothée Makarow, Boris Unger, Miriam van Eekert, Els Schuman, Marco Segre Reinach, Markus T. Lasut, Miriam Weber
bioRxiv 2021.01.31.429013; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.31.429013
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Half-life of biodegradable plastics in the marine environment depends on material, habitat, and climate zone
Christian Lott, Andreas Eich, Dorothée Makarow, Boris Unger, Miriam van Eekert, Els Schuman, Marco Segre Reinach, Markus T. Lasut, Miriam Weber
bioRxiv 2021.01.31.429013; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.01.31.429013

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