Authors : Khushboo Yadav, Meena Godha and Saraswati Singh
Page Nos : 76-89
Description :
Human civilization is moving towards its ends with the ever increasing global warming and pollution. We are witnessing new health hazards every coming day. One of the most concerned issues in present times is the plastic waste. Plastic has reached to the most remote locations in the world and traces of plastic particles are practically everywhere. Large plastic waste is easy to collect and manage but smaller fragments of plastics are emerging as more complicated issue because they largely get unnoticed. Various studies are going on throughout the globe to extract microplastics from soil, aquatic organisms, animals etc. We assessed the presence of microplastic particles in the fishes sold for human consumption in parts of Jaipur, Rajasthan. Fishes with a sample size of n=30 were purchased from the local fish market of Jaipur. All the fishes belonged to same species, Rohu which is one of the most famous and favorite fishes among the non vegetarian population of the area. Fishes were dissected and processed using Alkali-digestion method to digest the organic matter and extract out the microplastics. Following digestion and filtration, microplastics were visually identified and further analyzed using FTIR and SEM techniques. FTIR data showed various peaks indicating the presence of polymers identical to plastics and along with that polysiloxanes were also found in the samples.
