According to observations and measurement results, the average deposition rate of these particles in the presence of worms was five times higher than without their involvement, experts at the center noted on Monday.
The problem of cleaning water bodies from microplastics, which negatively affects the health of fish, animals and humans, is solved by aquatic tube worms living at the bottom of water bodies, according to the study by Russian scientists.
According to experts, the problem of contamination of ecosystems with polymer waste is one of the negative consequences of human activities, and there are no effective technologies in the world to completely clean the environment from microparticles of elastomers.
The need to recycle microplastics continues to grow as the amount of their particles deposited in freshwater and sediments on the seabed has increased tenfold over the past 60 years.
The experiment of Tomsk scientists, which discovered that the tube worms are able to bury this debris in the sediments, provides world science for the first time with unequivocal data on whether the organisms living in water bodies help to clean the aquifers.
From previous studies it was known that the organisms living on the surface and in the bottom sediments of water bodies interact with microplastics, but it was not clarified whether they contributed to the spilling of the plastic or, on the contrary, released it into the bottom sediments.
These tiny particles absorb everything in the water, including toxic substances like pesticides, heavy metals and disease-causing microbes.
Filter-feeding organisms (molluscs, juvenile fish) accumulate it and can thus later get into human food; it is even assumed that they can have a toxic effect.
According to accumulated data, reproductive function, endocrine system function and digestion can be impaired in animals as a result of exposure to microplastics.
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