Distribution Characteristics and Source Analysis of Microplastics in Urban Freshwater Lakes: A Case Study in Songshan Lake of Dongguan, China

Current studies on microplastic pollution mainly focus marine systems. However, few have investigated microplastics in an urban lake. This research intends to use lake (Songshan Lake) as example explore the characteristics of and principal component well heat map analysis discuss relationships between different shapes microplastics. According this study, average abundance surface water sediments Songshan Lake were, respectively, 2.29 ± 0.98 items/m3 244 121 items/kg; thin films were major both media; transparent type color has most content. The particle size was 0.18–0.6 mm (43.3%) 1–2 (48.3%) sediments. composition included five polymers: polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polypropylene–polyethylene copolymer (PP–PE copolymer), polystyrene (PS), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), among which PE (47%) PP (36%) main components. Principal (PCA) showed that there a positive correlation four microplastics: films, fragments, foams, fibers. same category shape distribution features may be similar for each sampling site.