Comprehensive assessment of microplastics in Australian biosolids: Abundance, seasonal variation and potential transport to agroecosystems

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Ziajahromi, Shima
Slynkova, Nikol
Dwyer, Jason
Griffith, Merran
Fernandes, Milena
Jaeger, Julia E
Leusch, Frederic DL
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2023
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Abstract

Striving towards a circular economy, the application of treated sewage sludge (biosolids) to land is an opportunity to improve the condition of the soil and add essential nutrients, in turn reducing the need for fertilisers. However, there is an increasing concern about microplastic (MP) contamination of biosolids and their transport to terrestrial ecosystems. In Australia, agriculture is the largest biosolids end-user, however, there is limited understanding of MPs in Australian biosolids. Also, while the method to isolate MPs from biosolid is established, a need to extract and analyse MPs more efficiently is still pressing. In this study, we comprehensively quantified and characterised MPs in 146 biosolids samples collected from thirteen wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) including different seasons. We have optimised an oxidative-enzymatic purification method to overcome current limitations for MP identification in complex samples and accurately report MPs in biosolids. This method enabled removal of >93% of dry weight of organic material and greatly facilitated the MPs instrumental analysis. The concentration of MPs (>20 µm) in all biosolids samples ranged from 11 to 150 MPs/g dry weight. Abundance of MPs was affected by seasons with higher abundance of MPs usually found during cold and wet seasons. Despite seasonal variations, polyethylene terephthalate, polyurethane and polymethyl methacrylate were the most abundant polymers. Smaller MPs (20 to 200 µm) comprised >70% of all detected MPs with a clear negative linear relationship observed between MP size and abundance. Per capita concentration of MPs in biosolids across all studied WWTPs was 0.7 to 21 g MPs per person per year. Therefore, MPs biosolids are an important sink and source of MPs to agroecosystems, emphasising the need to more comprehensively understand the fate, impact and risks associated with MPs on agricultural soils.

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Water Research

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© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advance online version.

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Ecology

Pollution and contamination

Soil sciences

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Ziajahromi, S; Slynkova, N; Dwyer, J; Griffith, M; Fernandes, M; Jaeger, JE; Leusch, FDL, Comprehensive assessment of microplastics in Australian biosolids: Abundance, seasonal variation and potential transport to agroecosystems, Water Research, 2023, pp. 121071

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