carried out a study along the Bloukrans River of South Africa and found microplastic
densities in beach sediments between 6.3 Æ 4.3 items per kg in summer season and
160.1 Æ 139.5 items per kg of sediment in winter season. Higher concentrations
were obtained in winter, associated with the flow of the river, and this in turn
associated with the transport of microplastics.
Microplastics are not only found in rivers and lakes, but there are also studies
where significant amounts of microplastics have been detected in potable water.
Novotna et al. (2019) collected results of some important studies that found significant amounts of plastic in both the public supply and the bottled water. The public
source that contains more microplastics is treated water in Czech Republic with
628 microplastics by liter (Pivokonsky et al. 2018). On the other hand, the bottled
Fig. 1.8 Abundance of microplastics in sediment and water samples from different freshwater
systems, i.e., rivers or lakes, across Africa. The abundances present in sediments are expressed in
items per kg (Source of data: Nel et al. (2018). Source of figure: Original production)
1 Microplastic Pollution in Water
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