Microplastics are everywhere — and they’re not good for us or the environment

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — As Pacific people, we rely on local fish far more than people living on the mainland and now we’re being warned about the growing problem of microplastics.

Look around your kitchen, market, and seashore at all the plastic items you see. But what about microplastics, the size of a pea, 5 millimeters, to 1 nanometer, less than the width of a human hair?  You might not see these but microplastics are in the air we breathe, our food and drink, even in our toothpaste and cosmetics. 

Dr. Rodrigo Weingrill, John A Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa finds them in the placenta of moms giving birth in Hawai’i.  His collaboration with American Samoan and Hawaiʻi teachers and students found microplastics in air, water,  and soil. Disturbingly, Hawaiʻi students also found them in gills of goatfish and parrotfish. What would we find in the gills of American Samoa’s favorite fish, experts are asking?

Dr. Pauline Chinn, College of Education, and Dr. Stefan Moisyadi, JABSOM are here in American Sāmoa, teaching with Tavita Togia in the PACMED program — a 30-credit, online, 2-year, cohorted track for Pacific Island educators of all age students up through undergraduate level with a focus on the education in STEAM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) & Place-Based Curriculum.

This coming Thursday, Feb. 27, from 5:00-7:00 pm, Dr. Rodrigo Weingrill will present recent research via ZOOM from Honolulu, while Dr. Chinn and Moisyadi will conduct microplastic workshops at local schools next week. 

For more information, contact Dr. Pauline Chinn at [email protected]. 

For more information on isolating microplastics from fish gills, contact Dr. Moisyadi at [email protected].