Microplastics are widely recognized as a category of emergent pollutants that can cause complex ecotoxicological effects. Synthetic fibers released during the washing of textiles are a relevant source of microplastics, which reach aquatic ecosystems from sewer discharges, even when there is retention in wastewater treatment plants. In this paper, we determined microfiber emissions from washing of textiles in a domestic environment, by collecting wastewater from washings of a mix of clothing from a household of 4 people. It is the first time the characterization of microplastic emission from textiles washing is performed in real household conditions. Results estimated an average emission rate of 18,000,000 synthetic microfibers for a reference load of 6 kg of synthetic fibers. Only 7% of the synthetic fibers found were larger than 500 μm in length, 40% were between 100 and 500 μm, and 53% were between 50 and 100 μm.
Microplastics (MP) pollution in marine ecosystems is a worldwide problem. Factors that influence their ingestion by different fish species are still not well understood. To our knowledge, this is the first work coupling MP accumulation and a full taxonomic description of planktivorous fish diet. We found that MP accumulation was more associated with prey size consumed by fish than with prey type, and species depending on larger mesozooplankton prey accumulated more MP than those dependent on smaller planktonic prey. We identify horse mackerel as a suitable bioindicator for MP monitoring in the pelagic Iberian ecosystem.
AbstractPlanktivorous pelagic fish are susceptible to accumulating microplastics (MP), which have the same size range as their prey and accumulate in their feeding and spawning grounds. We analyzed stomach contents of pelagic fish (European sardine, horse mackerel, anchovy, chub mackerel, Atlantic mackerel, and bogue) from Atlanto-Iberian waters to investigate the relationship between MP ingestion, their diet composition and select a potential bioindicator. We found significant differences between diet of the studied fish species in terms of prey type and size. MP ingestion was significantly related to diet composition. Species with diets that include smaller prey (European sardine, chub mackerel, and bogue) had lower MP concentration in the stomachs than fish depending on larger mesozooplanktonic prey. Horse mackerel had the highest proportion of larger prey (> 1000 μm) and the highest MP abundance in the stomachs, and thus are a suitable bioindicator for MP monitoring in the pelagic Iberian ecosystem.
Solideliquid separation of slurry is used to obtain a solid (SF) and liquid fraction (LF), both used as organic fertilisers. Previous works showed that the separation technique used influences the composition of the resulting SF but no data are available relative to the LF. Four commonly used separation processes were considered e centrifugation, sieving, enhanced settling by the addition of cationic polyacrylamide (PAM-), and sediment settling as well as a recent sequential process e sieving followed by PAM addition to the resulting LF. The resulting LFs and SFs were comprehensively characterised and the amount of N potentially available for plants after incorporation to soil was also evaluated. Except for slurry that was only sieved which was very similar in composition to whole slurry (WS), the SFs and LFs had, respectively, higher and lower, concentrations of nutrients and organic matter (OM) than the WS. The ratio of ammoniacal to total N in the LFs varied from 0.33 to 0.92 whereas the values in the SFs varied between 0.16 and 0.31. The N:P:K ratio was also significantly influenced by the separation technique. Less than 10% of the total N applied in the WS, SFs or LFs was found to be potentially available for plants and, in some LFs, N immobilisation occurred after soil application. Since separation technique strongly influences nutrient distribution between LF and SF, as well as N speciation, the choice of the technique has to consider the final use of the resulting fractions as well as acquisition and operating costs.
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