Session: Presidential Symposium: Plastics and the Oceans: Chemistry for the Journey Ahead:

A comprehensive and accurate understanding of the persistence of plastic goods in the environment is critical for adopting science-based regulations that address plastic pollution. One component of this understanding requires constraints on the rates of degradation of plastics in the unique environments in which they are found. To date, the rates of degradation of cellulose diacetate in the marine environment have yet to be constrained. This work details the use of orthogonal techniques for studying microbial disintegration of cellulose diacetate materials (films, foams, & fabrics) relative to biodegradable and synthetic control materials, in a natural seawater mesocosm, including photographic evidence, mass loss data, and enzymatic activity measurements. Our findings indicate that microbial degradation of cellulose diacetate materials in coastal seawater appears to be surface area dependent and occurs on timescales of weeks to months.

Michael Mazzotta

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

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