Consumption of commercially sold dried fish snack "Charales" contaminated with microplastics in Mexico

Inadvertent human exposure to microplastics by the ingestion of microplastic-contaminated processed foods poses health risks and new preventative issues; nevertheless, investigations analyzing microplastic occurrences in commercially dried fish for direct human consumption are scarce. This study assessed the abundance and characteristics of microplastics in 25 commercially sold dried fish products (4 supermarkets, 3 street vendors, and 18 traditional agri-product farmers' markets) from two widely consumed and commercially important Chirostoma species (C. jordani and C. patzcuaro) in Mexico. Microplastics were detected in all the samples examined, with abundances ranging from 4.00 ± 0.94 to 55.33 ± 9.43 items g-1. C. jordani dried fish samples had higher mean microplastic abundance (15.17 ± 5.90 items g-1) than the C. patzcuaro dried fish samples (7.82 ± 2.90 items g-1); nevertheless, there was no statistically significant difference in microplastic concentrations between the samples. The most prevalent type of microplastic was fiber (67.55%), followed by fragment (29.18%), film (3.00%), and sphere (0.27%). Non-colored microplastics (67.35%) predominated, while microplastic sizes varied from 24 to 1670 μm, with sizes less than 500 μm (84%) being the most common. ATR-FTIR analysis revealed polyester, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, polyvinyl alcohol, ethylene-propylene copolymer, nylon-6 (3), cellophane, and viscose in the dried fish samples. Overall, this study's findings are the first in Latin America to demonstrate microplastic contamination in dried fish for human consumption, underscoring the need for developing countermeasures to prevent plastic pollution in fish-caught regions and reduce the risks of human exposure to these micropollutants.