In December 2023, 25 tons of pellets were lost by the Toconao ship in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean in front of the Portuguese coast. In this work, a coastal stretch of 633 km in Asturias and Galicia (Spain) and Northern Portugal was investigated to assess pellets' concentration on 31 beaches. Field surveys were carried out in March 2024 and focused on sampling plastic pellets deposited along the shoreline. All the 7263 sampled pellets were characterized by size, degradation level, and color, while one subset was characterized by weight (40 % of the total) and another subset by polymer type (15 % of the total) using FT-IR spectroscopy. The results reveal that 94 % of the surveyed sites containing pellets, whereas the concentration values vary significantly among beaches, ranging from 0 to 40.3 pellets/kgdw. By combining the accounted variables, it emerges that 48.0 % of the collected pellets can be linked to the Toconao spill.

中文翻译：

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颗粒泄漏造成的微塑料污染：西班牙和葡萄牙海岸的 Toconao 船事故分析


2023 年 12 月，Toconao 船在葡萄牙海岸前的西北大西洋损失了 25 吨颗粒。在这项工作中，调查了阿斯图里亚斯和加利西亚（西班牙）以及葡萄牙北部 633 公里的沿海地区，以评估 31 个海滩上的颗粒浓度。实地调查于 2024 年 3 月进行，重点是对沿海岸线沉积的塑料颗粒进行采样。所有 7263 个采样颗粒都使用 FT-IR 光谱法按大小、降解程度和颜色进行表征，而一个子集按重量（占总数的 40%）表征，另一个子集按聚合物类型（占总数的 15%）进行表征。结果显示，94% 的调查地点含有颗粒，而海滩之间的浓度值差异很大，从 0 到 40.3 颗粒/kgdw 不等。通过组合计算的变量，可以得出 48.0% 的收集颗粒可能与 Toconao 泄漏有关。