Fighting Microplastics: Pump Systems at the Forefront of Ocean Conservation

Jane Marsh

Microplastics are most likely everywhere. They are in the air you breathe, your clothes, your perfume, that clear container in your refrigerator, and even your water. Unfortunately, they are also in the ocean, harming marine life daily. While scientists believe microplastics are everywhere, there is not enough testing and studying to collect the data needed to enact regulations for the amount of microplastics contained in products and other areas. However, pump systems are helping collect that necessary data in both the coast and the middle of the ocean.

What Are Microplastics?

Microplastics are tiny particles of plastic that have broken down over time. They are created when plastic products start to decompose or are designed to fall apart. Primarily, they can only be observed and studied through a microscope.

Microplastics are increasingly common. They are even in your clothes, lodged into the fabric of your shirt. This is the result of years of plastic use and not enough recording of the impact of plastic and the subsequent creation of microplastics on the environment. Without any data, companies can create microplastics rampantly. 

The ocean is often hit the hardest, as most drains, rivers, wells, waste, and other water sources empty into it. It has become increasingly more important to survey the amount of microplastics in the ocean to collect accurate data that can be used in ocean conservation efforts as proof of the negative impact. It will likely result in specific regulations being put into place.

Ocean Conservation and Microplastics

Ocean conservation occurs when efforts are made to keep the oceans and seas safe from harm, emphasizing the preservation of ecosystems. Marine life thrives in ecosystems, so ensuring places like reefs and plant homes like sea anemone remain intact is crucial to keeping marine species alive and well. 

Microplastics harm marine life and their accompanying ecosystems. Often, animals accidentally ingest microplastics because they look like food. Microplastics contain chemicals used to make plastic colorful, which can be released into the water and hinder marine life development. Suppose a particular species of animals at the bottom of the food chain starts to go extinct. If an animal relied on them for food, then that animal would starve. This sets off a chain reaction that negatively impacts the entire marine life ecosystem, causing the loss of habitats and extinction of necessary animals. 

Pump Systems on the Coast

Two pump systems can collect and filter microplastics in coastal areas to provide accurate data. The first is the UFO, Universal Filter Object, and the second is the KCD, or KC Denmark’s Microplastic Particle. When testing the amount of small microplastic samples collected by both systems, there was not much difference in the findings. This means both pumps could be used to provide data for microplastic research.

Pump Systems in the Ocean

It is often much harder to accurately measure the amount of microplastics in the open ocean. Beyond its sheer size, the financial effort and equipment required to test it accurately are unsustainable. However, a new pump system is opening the ocean up for microplastic study in a unique way.

The pump underway system is a contraption hooked to cruise ships and smaller boats. When paired with a microplastic filtering device, it can collect and filter large amounts of water to uncover the microplastics within it. For reference, the only other standard method of surveying microplastics in the open ocean is a mesh net, which cannot gather the smaller microplastics for studying. The pump underway system can gather many different-sized microplastics, which is beneficial for data collection efforts.

Advantages of the Pump Underway System

The use of a pump underway system has many advantages. For one, it is cost-effective and affordable. The parts used to design and create it are inexpensive. Water pumps themselves are also very durable. Some domestic ones can last for 10 years or more. Because the pumps are affordable and last long, their initial purchase is more doable. The pumps on ships can be mounted by researchers themselves, limiting the need to pay for installation.

Using pump underway systems presents a unique opportunity because they can attach to the bottom of cruise ships. Cruise ships travel globally, so valuable microplastic data can be collected from many areas. Also, the system does not interfere with any activities or other proceedings on the ship. Because its interruptions are virtually nonexistent, this might incentivize cruise ship companies and other boats to let researchers hook the system up to their vessels for data collection.

Pump underway systems are also very versatile. They can configure themselves to adapt to many different sampling requirements, allowing for measurement in deeper areas as well as on the sea or reef bed platform. These systems are also accurate, containing a flowmeter that provides information comparable to other microplastic collection studies. 

A significant advantage of the systems is their ability to gather small microplastics. As stated earlier, the only popular method before was a mesh net that gathered some small microplastics, but not enough to truly measure the amount in the ocean. With the pump underway system in place, even the smallest microplastics can be collected as valuable data.

Other Methods to Limit Microplastics

Because water is such a common place to find microplastics, there are plenty of other systems that do not involve pumps to keep them out of the ocean. Some prefiltering systems exist in areas where a river or other water source empties into the ocean. They filter the water and remove some of the harmful litter, like microplastics, to keep them from entering the sea at all.

Do you remember that microplastics are in your clothes? Well, filters are being introduced that attach inside laundry machines to extract the tiny fibers from clothes. This keeps humans from being negatively affected by microplastics as well. It also keeps clothes thrown away or lost from eventually spreading microplastics into the environment, sometimes even the ocean.

Microplastics and Human Health

If you think microplastics only harm the ocean, think again. Microplastics are not just in clothes or the sea. They are also in food, bottled water, and other necessities that humans consume daily. It has even been estimated that humans eat about one credit card a week in microplastics just going about their daily lives. Health issues like damaged immune systems and strange organ development have been tied to microplastic ingestion. Reproductive health is another common target when humans unknowingly consume microplastics.

The issue is not just in the ocean, but in humans’ everyday lives. Collecting data from the sea helps the marine animals, but it also helps you. If regulations are implemented to limit microplastics in the sea, then that will hopefully limit their usage in everyday items humans consume. The key is for companies, concerning new regulations, to be forced to look for new ways to make more sustainable products without creating so many harmful microplastics.

Pump Systems Help the Ocean

The presence of microplastics is becoming an increasingly dangerous and essential issue. Without accurate data, there will not be enough grounds to request new regulations to limit microplastic production. Pump systems might be the answer to aiding ocean conservation through data collection since the overabundance of microplastics significantly impacts oceans. Working on the coast and in the open sea, pump systems collect valuable data that can be researched and studied to create a better, sustainable future.

References

1. Jeunen, G., Mills, S., Mariani, S., Treece, J., Ferreira, S., Stanton, J. L., Durán-Vinet, B., Duffy, G. A., Gemmell, N. J., & Miles Lamare. (2024). Streamlining large-scale oceanic biomonitoring using passive eDNA samplers integrated into vessel's continuous pump underway seawater systems. Science of the Total Environment, 946(1), 174-354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.174354 

2. NOAA. (2024, July 8). What are the impacts of microplastics? National Ocean Service. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial-coastal/marine-debris/md04-sub-01.html

3. Russell, S. (2024, July 4). What are microplastics? Here’s what we know. Environment. https://environment.co/what-are-microplastics/ 

4. Savchuk, K. (2025, January 29). Microplastics and our health: What the science says. Standford Medicine. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2025/01/microplastics-in-body-polluted-tiny-plastic-fragments.html 

5. The science behind pump lifespan: maximizing your pump’s durability. (2025, September 23). Zoeller Pump Company. Retrieved October 28, 2025, from https://zoellerpumps.com/2025/09/23/2025-09-23-maximizing-pump-durability/ 

6. Ugwu, K., Vianello, A., Almeda, R., Iordachescu, L., & Rotander, A. (2024). Comparison of two pump-based systems for sampling small microplastics (>10 μM) in coastal waters. Environmental Pollution, 363(2), 125-192. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39461611/  

7. Weis, J. (2024, January 13). Laundry is a top source of microplastic pollution. Here’s how to clean your clothes more sustainably. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/laundry-is-a-top-source-of-microplastic-pollution-heres-how-to-clean-your-clothes-more-sustainably