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MEDIA: 1000s of plastic tubes wash up on beaches
24 February 2025
Emily Stevenson, PhD researcher at PML and the University of Exeter, featured on BBC Spotlight over the weekend investigating thousands of plastic tubes found washed up on beaches near Falmouth.
Image caption: Carol Hurst, from One Bag Beach Clean – a community beach clean group said “we’ve had thousands of these plastic things coming in”. Image credit: One Bag Beach Clean.
Emily said:
“We’ve got these bottles washing up in vast quantities. We’ve had over 100 donated to us for research purposes but we know there is a lot more out there.”
“One of the types is a nasal spray, and one of them is an ear and eye wash containing an antibiotic.”
Emily’s PhD is focused on the microbial reefs that grow on microplastic particles in aquatic environments – “whether microplastics act as hotspots for pathogenic or antimicrobial resistant bacteria”.
She has begun processing the plastic tubes in the laboratory with Dr Vos of the University of Exeter, to “see what bugs have made these bottles their home” and she says to “stay tuned” for results.
Emily has recently published a study that found microplastics offer a platform for both antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) and pathogenic bacteria, responsible for diseases in both humans and animals. Access the paper: Selective colonization of microplastics, wood and glass by antimicrobial-resistant and pathogenic bacteria