A novel, highly efficient method for the separation and quantification of plastic particles in sediments of aquatic environments

Although plastic debris is constantly accumulating in aquatic environments, the impact on aquatic ecosystems is not yet fully understood. A first important step to assess the consequences of plastic debris in aquatic ecosystems is the establishment of a reliable, verified, and standardized method to quantify the amount of plastic particles in the environment. We improved the density separation approach by the construction of the so called Munich Plastic Sediment Separator (MPSS). It enables a reliable separation of different ecologically relevant size classes of plastic particles from sediment samples. A ZnCl2‐solution (1.6–1.7 kg/L) as separation fluid allows for an extraction of plastic particles ranging from large fragments to small microplastic particles (S‐MPP,