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Infrastructure is often a limiting factor in microplastics research impacting the production of scientific outputs and monitoring data. International projects are therefore required to promote collaboration and development of national and regional scientific hubs. The Commonwealth Litter Programme and the Ocean Country Partnership Programme were developed to support Global South countries to take actions on plastics entering the oceans. An international laboratory network was developed to provide the infrastructure and in country capacity to conduct the collection and processing of microplastics in environmental samples. The laboratory network was also extended to include a network developed by the University of East Anglia, UK. All the laboratories were provided with similar equipment for the collection, processing and analysis of microplastics in environmental samples. Harmonised protocols and training were also provided in country during laboratory setup to ensure comparability of quality-controlled outputs between laboratories. Such large networks are needed to produce comparable baseline and monitoring assessments., (© 2024. Crown.)

Atmospheric microplastic transport is an important delivery pathway with the deposition of microplastics to ecologically important regions raising environmental concerns. Investigating atmospheric delivery pathways and their deposition rates in different ecosystems is necessary to understanding its global impact. In this study, atmospheric deposition was collected at three sites in Malaysia, two urban and one pristine, covering the Northeast and Southwest monsoons to quantify the role of this pathway in Southeast Asia. Air mass back trajectories showed long-range atmospheric transport of microplastics to all sites with atmospheric deposition varying from 114 to 689 MP/m 2 /day. For the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, monsoonal season influenced microplastic transport and deposition rate with peak microplastic deposition during the Northeast monsoon due to higher wind speed. MP morphology combined with size fractionation and plastic type at the coastal sites indicated a role for long-range marine transport of MPs that subsequently provided a local marine source to the atmosphere at the coastal sites., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Dissolved oxygen is an ecologically critical variable with the prevalence of hypoxia one of the key global anthropogenic issues. A study was carried out to understand the causes of low dissolved oxygen in Brunei Bay, northwest Borneo. Hypoxia was widespread in bottom waters in the monsoonal dry season with dissolved oxygen < 2 mg/L throughout the coastal zone. This was a result of riverine nutrient input primarily from the Padas river driving excess primary production and its subsequent sinking into stratified bottom water where its decomposition consumed oxygen. Despite higher riverine nutrient input in the wet season hypoxia was less extensive due to the combination of turbidity reducing coastal primary production, the intrusion of oxygen-rich water from the South China Sea into offshore bottom layer waters and horizontal flushing increase advection of phytoplankton biomass out of the bay. Future investigation of hypoxia in shallow tropical regions therefore needs to consider the role of monsoonal season., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Solution-enhanced dispersion by supercritical carbon dioxide (SEDS) and spray drying (SD) were used to microencapsulate red palm oil (RPO) to prolong the functionality of carotenes and vitamin E. The protective effects provided by SEDS and SD were evaluated in terms of the oxidative stability (65 °C for 35 days), fatty acid compositions, color change and degradation kinetics of carotenes and vitamin E (25 °C, 45 °C, 65 °C, and 85 °C for up to 198 days). SEDS microcapsules (SEDS-M) were the most oxidatively stable (total oxidation (Totox): 26.5), followed by SD microcapsules (SD-M) (34.9) and RPO (56.7). Degradation of carotenes and vitamin E fitted well a first-order kinetic model (average absolute relative deviation = 2-16%). SEDS-M offered better protection to vitamin E (E a  = 36 kJ/mol), whereas SD-M provided better protection for α + β carotene (E a  = 29 kJ/mol). Overall, encapsulation protected RPO during storage, with SEDS-microencapsulated RPO performing better than SD-microencapsulated RPO., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)