Since the beginning of the mass production in the 1940s, plastic has been manufactured in quickly increasing amounts. Plastic debris accumulates in the environment and lately much attention has been drawn to the pollution in the world’s oceans. Despite the rapid development and ubiquitous presence of plastic, degradation in the marine environment and potential risks associated with plastic are not fully understood. Thus, these knowledge gaps were addressed in this thesis, which adds information about exposure and hazards of marine plastic debris.

Although sampling studies have been conducted all over the world, the concentrations of plastic debris in the Baltic Sea have hardly been investigated. In Paper I, the level and distribution of plastic debris in the Stockholm Archipelago were assessed. Plastic concentrations were higher close to suspected point sources compared to remote areas. Fibers accounted for the most common form and the predominant polymer types were polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE).

In Paper II, the literature was critically reviewed for the most important degradation pathways for plastic under environmentally relevant conditions. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation, leading to photo-oxidation, is the most important initiating factor for buoyant plastic. Consequently, a UV lamp was used in Paper III for an artificial weathering setup in the laboratory to degrade pristine plastics and analyze the chemical leachates by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) for degradation products using a nontarget approach. Carboxylic acids and dicarboxylic acids of polymer fragments were the most commonly identified degradation products of the plastic polymers, confirming predictions made in Paper II.

To evaluate potential hazards posed by leachates from weathering plastic debris to marine organisms, an acute toxicity screening study with Nitocra spinipes was conducted in Paper IV. Field-exposed plastic and the corresponding newly purchased plastic were artificially aged with the same weathering setup as in Paper III. Poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and PP leachates were generally most toxic, while leachates from polystyrene (PS) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) were least toxic among the tested materials. For plastics, which were supposed to contain only few additives, we observed no difference in toxicity between leachates from the field-exposed and the newly purchased plastic. However, the other plastic products exposed to the marine environment were more toxic than their corresponding newly bought products. This indicates that the toxicity of the leachates not only depends on the polymer type, but also on the weathering condition of the plastic.