Dr. Anne Marie Mahon:

The reason we started to do freshwater research was that much was already known about microplastics in the marine environment. Much research had been carried out but little was known about the source of microplastics and why they were there. To date, we do not know exactly how plastics transition from land to sea, although we know that all plastics in the sea originate on land. While some may be carried directly to the sea, we suspect that rivers are major corridors. In our research on this particular project, we do not go down to the estuary but we have begun to add more research to bridge the gap between freshwater and the marine. For example, we have an estuarine study starting this summer.