Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) is the Dutch government organization which is largely responsible for the MSFD and OSPAR monitoring. As a part of this, RWS has to monitor microplastics in marine sediments. RWS is consulting the European market, in order to find a microplastic monitoring laboratory, who has the experience to deliver monitoring results with the desired monitoring quality.
Reliable microplastic data in Dutch marine sediment are important to comply with European MSFD reporting demands and internationally agreed OSPAR reporting, and are necessary to establish the microplastic status in Dutch marine sediments, to test for Dutch trends, and for compliance checking with an EU threshold value for microplastics which is expected in the future.
Microplastic monitoring in the marine environment is still in its infancy, and the reported methods often refer to research projects and methods. Furthermore, the monitoring of microplastics is complex, due to the large suite of polymers,