Abstract
Dewatered digested sludge and compost may act as a conduit for microplastics (<5 mm) in terrestrial and subsequently aquatic systems. However, standardized methods for microplastics analyses are lacking. Thus, the aim is to demonstrate the applicability of wet-sieving as a way to quantify large microplastic particles (MPP, 1-5 mm) in dewatered digested sludge and compost. Additionally, we investigated the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, expired drinks and slaughterhouse waste used as co-substrate for anaerobic digestion at wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). Therefore, we collected samples from six WWTP and two biogas plants. These were then wet-sieved and potential MPP analysed via attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). In dewatered digested sludge the amount of microplastics ranged from 0 to 326 MPP/kg TS (total solids) while compost contained 39-102 MPP/kg TS. Our results show that with 0-36 MPP/kg TS co-substrates are not necessarily a source of microplastics in WWTP. Furthermore, we found film to be the most abundant shape in the biogas plant samples, whereas, in WWTP samples film, fragments and fibers were detected the most. ATR-FTIR revealed that polyvinyl chloride, polyester, polypropylene, and polyethylene were the most abundant materials found across all samples.
Highlights
Plastic products make our everyday lives easier and one has a hard time imagining a world without plastics
Scientists and other people have become increasingly concerned by microplastics polluting the environment
During this research we demonstrated the applicability of wet-sieving as a method to isolate plastic particles from sludge, co-substrates, and compost taking a step towards standardized methods for MP from [1,2,3,4,5] mm, while contributing information about the MP contamination of the analyzed samples
Summary
Plastic products make our everyday lives easier and one has a hard time imagining a world without plastics. The mass production and common use of plastics only occurred after World War II. While initially the production of plastics was 2 million tons per year in the 1950s, it increased to an annual production of 380 million tons in 2015 Called microplastics (MP), particles of
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Schedule a callMore From: Water science and technology : a journal of the International Association on Water Pollution Research
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