On Mexico’s Caribbean coast, there are microplastics for lobsters for tourists and everyone else

Fishermen’s Puerto Morelos is on Mexico’s Caribbean coast and lives in danger every time they go out to fish at sea or dive into lobsters. Their bounty depends on luck, as the weather usually makes it impossible to get out, and on other days the hooks they cast are back. These workers set out to find the best lobsters for wealthy vacationers coming to the region every day, while they and their families are separated from the many benefits of tourism development and are all over the fish filled with microplastics.

Omar Oslet Rivera-Garibay, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Science and Amniotics at the University of Mexico, documented the lives of these fishermen in a recent study. He and his colleagues reported that while Pescadores de Puerto Morelos fishing collaborates to harvest and sell high-value seafood products to satisfy visitors’ appetites, they are left with only fish caught near the beach in the town for their own consumption. It has little commercial value and is contaminated by tiny pieces of plastic.

As part of the study, Rivera-Garibay and the team captured 424 fish species from 29 different species using the same method as the cooperative’s partners. All of this was dissected, and its digestive tract was cleared and examined. Contaminants were found in 57% of fish, with more than a thousand microplastic particles recovered. The study notes that “fish treated in shallow water near the coast have significantly more microplastics on their intestines than fish that are attracted by deep water.”

Handline Fishing is a traditional method that has long been used in shallow water near Morelos Puerto Rico. It consists of just a line and hook and can be used to catch fish such as croaker, which are edible but have little commercial value. Two other methods are used to capture more valuable species. one Líneade Rosario (“rosary line”) consists of multiple lines with a series of branch hooks for deeper waters about 20 nautical miles from the coast. It is used to catch snapper, grouper and pig fish. The lobster was captured by a spear gun.

The lowest content of fish that fishermen are brought home by raising their families, containing more microplastics. High-value fish are sold to tourists in Quintanaruo State and receive more than $200 billion in tourists each year. Quintana Roo is the most-income Mexican state with tourism revenue, but that doesn’t drip into the bottom of the population pyramid. As of 2020, 42.6% of the population in Puerto Morelos lives in poverty or extreme poverty, according to the Mexican Economic Secretariat.

Rivera-Garibay highlights the dangers of microplastics in fish. “These species are consumed by humans. Microplastics contain potentially dangerous chemicals, such as plastic monomers and additives, which absorb toxic pollutants from the environment, such as harmful microorganisms and algae, which can cause human diseases,” Rivera-Garibay said. “However, there is still no solid evidence that seafood safety is damaged by microplastics. There is an urgent need to know more about the impact of microplastics on seafood.”