Introduction: Plastic is widely used everywhere. It is a versatile material, which provides protection and support, and is used as a building block of technological equipment. Plastic degrades into smaller pieces—microplastics (MP)—due to environmental conditions, or it is manufactured in this size—i.e., primary MP. MP particles in the sea are particularly dangerous for sea life and animals that can feed on MP unintentionally. Secondary ingestion is seen in larger fish (also sea mammals and birds) that feed on organisms already containing MP pieces. Microscopic methods are used for determining the quantity of MP particles, and infrared spectroscopy with Fourier transformation (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy, gas chromatography with mass detector (GC-MS), thermal analysis, and other methods are used for determining the MP polymer types. Purpose: To study the sensitivity of two MP detection methods in fish and to analyse real samples of fish from the Gulf of Trieste. Methods: Two methods for determining MP particles in environmental samples were compared: method one for determining MP particles in sea fish, which is based on detecting characteristic volatile organic compounds with GC-MS; and another standard method for determining the polymer type with FT-IR spectroscopy. Results: The GC-MS method of analysis showed that volatile organic compounds in the studied polymers can be detected in the mixture of polymers and fish entrails for PE, PP, PS and PVC at the lowest mass of 20 mg for each polymer. The PET polymer was not detected. When analysing each polymer and fish entrails, the lowest detection mass was seen in the PE polymer at 2 mg. In the real samples of sea fish, three MP particles were determined as PE, their size was under 500 μm and mass under 2 mg. Consequently, we decided to determine the polymer type with the micro-FT-IR spectroscope method. Discussion and conclusion: MP particles from real samples were successfully determined with micro-FT-IR spectroscopy. It can be claimed that the GC-MS method is successful in determining MP particles with a mass of more than 2 mg for PE, and more than 20 mg for a combination of PE, PP, PS and PVC polymers. With further improvements, the GC-MS method of analysis will be used as an alternative method for determining MP in environmental samples; it is, however, limited by the lowest mass of the sample polymer, which can be avoided by analysing combined samples.
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