The data presented here, and that of other medical studies
with rodents and humans, indicate that fragments of
microplastic may translocate from the gut cavity to the blood
stream in a wide range of organisms. To establish the extent
to which this occurs in natural populations, and to identify
any adverse effects, it will be necessary to further refine
techniques to quantify small plastic fragments. For example,
current methods to identify plastic debris using Fourier
transform infrared spectroscopy only permit particles of
plasticdownto approximately 20 μminsize to be conclusively
identified (3), but it is entirely feasible that plastic particles
are now present in the environment at the much smaller
nanometer scale.