Australia Institute of Marine Science (Australia)

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) is Australia’s tropical marine research agency.
They play a pivotal role in providing large-scale, long-term and world-class research that helps governments, industry and the wider community to make informed decisions about the management of Australia’s marine estate. The AIMS is committed to undertaking research that addresses real needs and provides impartial, authoritative advice that supports both the protection and sustainable use of Australia’s marine heritage, now and in the future.

Microplastics are contaminants of emergent concern and are ubiquitous in the marine environment globally.
With the levels of marine microplastic contamination likely increasing due to increased plastic production and no substantial changes in solid waste management, scientists and governments are interested in microplastic monitoring programmes that can help to better inform environmental management.

In Australia, microplastic contamination has been reported throughout the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA). However, a comprehensive understanding of the status and trends of this contamination in the region is lacking due to the limited number of studies in relation to the GBRWHA area, as well as the absence of seasonal and temporal information on levels of microplastic contamination.

To address this knowledge gap, the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) has been routinely collecting seawater samples in inshore areas of the GBRWHA since February 2017 to monitor microplastic presence, abundance, and characteristics.

In 2022/2023, the Eurofins Foundation supported a collaborative project between AIMS and Eurofins to analyse samples from the inshore GBRWHA for microplastic contamination and assess analytical procedures to streamline seawater sample processing and analysis for marine microplastic monitoring programmes.

Part of the data generated was presented in August 2023 at the SETAC Australasia Conference (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry). The support also provided AIMS staff the opportunity to visit Eurofins’ microplastics laboratory facility in Melbourne, which helped them leverage changes on AIMS facility and laboratorial procedures that would improve the quality assurance and quality control of their microplastics research. The visit to the Eurofins laboratory in Melbourne has also provided valuable information used for AIMS new vessel planning, in which AIMS is looking into having a microplastics specific area for sample pre-processing and processing. Lastly, the Eurofins Foundation has also helped AIMS to leverage the acquisition of a new sampling device to be used for microplastics collection in the seawater, which will expand AIMS capabilities to sample water at various depths with minimum effort and high efficiency.

Results from this project are creating awareness in the general public concerning microplastic contamination and plastic pollution in general, as well as providing valuable information regarding microplastics presence and distribution along the GBRWHA. This project is closely aligned with other microplastic monitoring initiatives from AIMS, resulting in a comprehensive spatial and temporal dataset which is expected to be used by marine state regulators to conduct environmental risk assessments.

These project contribute to the following United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

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