Mark Anthony Browne, Stewart J. Niven, Tamara S. Galloway, Steve J. 
Rowland, Richard C. Thompson, Microplastic Moves Pollutants and 
Additives to Worms, Reducing Functions Linked to Health and 
Biodiversity, Current Biology, Volume 23, Issue 23, 2 December 2013, 
Pages 2388-2392, ISSN 0960-9822, 
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.10.012.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982213012530)
Abstract: Summary
Inadequate products, waste management, and policy are struggling to 
prevent plastic waste from infiltrating ecosystems [1 and 2]. 
Disintegration into smaller pieces means that the abundance of 
micrometer-sized plastic (microplastic) in habitats has increased [3] 
and outnumbers larger debris [2 and 4]. When ingested by animals, 
plastic provides a feasible pathway to transfer attached pollutants and 
additive chemicals into their tissues [5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 
and 15]. Despite positive correlations between concentrations of 
ingested plastic and pollutants in tissues of animals, few, if any, 
controlled experiments have examined whether ingested plastic transfers 
pollutants and additives to animals. We exposed lugworms (Arenicola 
marina) to sand with 5% microplastic that was presorbed with pollutants 
(nonylphenol and phenanthrene) and additive chemicals (Triclosan and 
PBDE-47). Microplastic transferred pollutants and additive chemicals 
into gut tissues of lugworms, causing some biological effects, although 
clean sand transferred larger concentrations of pollutants into their 
tissues. Uptake of nonylphenol from PVC or sand reduced the ability of 
coelomocytes to remove pathogenic bacteria by >60%. Uptake of Triclosan 
from PVC diminished the ability of worms to engineer sediments and 
caused mortality, each by >55%, while PVC alone made worms >30% more 
susceptible to oxidative stress. As global microplastic contamination 
accelerates, our findings indicate that large concentrations of 
microplastic and additives can harm ecophysiological functions performed 
by organisms.

http://download.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/PIIS0960982213012530.