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  • An audit of microplastic abundance throughout three Australian wastewater treatment plants

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    Embargoed until: 2022-09-10
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    Accepted Manuscript (AM)
    Author(s)
    Ziajahromi, Shima
    Neale, Peta A
    Silveira, Isabel Telles
    Chua, Andrew
    Leusch, Frederic DL
    Griffith University Author(s)
    Ziajahromi, Shima
    Neale, Peta A.
    Leusch, Frederic
    Year published
    2020
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    Abstract
    Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been identified as an important pathway of microplastics to the environment. Most studies have focused on wastewater effluent, but generally only a small fraction of microplastics entering WWTPs are present in treated effluent. Instead, the majority of microplastics are expected to be retained in the sludge. To our knowledge, there is limited information on microplastics in sludge/biosolids from Australian WWTPs, despite 75% of biosolids produced in Australia being used for agriculture. This study evaluated the abundance of microplastics throughout the treatment trains of three WWTPs ...
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    Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been identified as an important pathway of microplastics to the environment. Most studies have focused on wastewater effluent, but generally only a small fraction of microplastics entering WWTPs are present in treated effluent. Instead, the majority of microplastics are expected to be retained in the sludge. To our knowledge, there is limited information on microplastics in sludge/biosolids from Australian WWTPs, despite 75% of biosolids produced in Australia being used for agriculture. This study evaluated the abundance of microplastics throughout the treatment trains of three WWTPs in Australia. The fate of microplastics >25 μm during treatment and their release to the environment was evaluated using an audit approach. The highest microplastic concentrations were detected in the influent, with fibres the dominant form of microplastic found. The screening and grit removal process preceding primary treatment removed 69–79% of microplastics, with these microplastics transported to landfill. Only 0.2–1.8% of the total microplastics in the influent were present in the final effluent, while 8–16% were retained in biosolids. This equates to between 22.1 × 106 to 133 × 106 microplastic particles per day released in effluent, between 864 × 106 to 1020 × 106 microplastic particles per day in biosolids, and between 4100 × 106 to 9100 × 106 microplastic particles per day transported to landfill. This study shows for the first time that most microplastics are retained during the initial screening and grit removal process with the load of microplastics going to landfill an order of magnitude greater than that in biosolids. Landfills may thus be an important sink (and potential future source) of microplastics from wastewater.
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    Journal Title
    Chemosphere
    Volume
    263
    DOI
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.128294
    Copyright Statement
    © 2020 Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Licence, which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, providing that the work is properly cited.
    Subject
    Environmental Sciences
    Publication URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/10072/397789
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