Assessment of the Ecological Aspects of Microplastic Pollution in Dar Es Salaam, Zanzibar and Mombasa Coastal Marine Environments

The project aims to explore the risks associated with plastics in the West African marine environment by examining the mechanisms of how plastic particles are taken up and passed along the trophic chain. The overarching goal of the proposed project is to quantify the difference between microplastics occurrence and distribution in various aquatic environmental matrices, the adsorption of chemicals on microplastics, their ingestion, trophic transfer and chemical release. The findings will be communicated to the public, relevant national and international authorities and decision makers. It is hypothesized that different aquatic environments such as water, sediment and biota will show different distribution patterns.