A complete mass balance for plastics in a wastewater treatment plant - Macroplastics contributes more than microplastics

Rasmussen, Lasse Abraham; Iordachescu, Lucian; Tumlin, Susanne; Vollertsen, Jes

doi:10.1016/j.watres.2021.117307

Cited by 82 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Hildebrandt et al (2021) analyse different sampling techniques and come to the conclusion that uncertainties due to lack of standardized analytical methods may override the variability of measurements among sampling stations reported in various monitoring, thus undermining any possibility to identify clear patterns in the data. A similar conclusion is made also by Rasmussen et al (2021). Ben-David et al (2021), comparing 24-h composite samples with large and small grab samples and analysing the respective coefficients of variation, report that sampling with a finer mesh size effectively doubled the number of MPs found.…”

Section: General Remarkssupporting

confidence: 75%

“…Ben-David et al (2021) calculate the retention rate of MP larger than 20 µm as 95.8% and of MP larger than 0.45 µm as 88.2% at a WWTP in Israel. Similarly, Rasmussen et al (2021), calculate the MP retention rate as 99.6% for and 98.8% for particles larger and smaller than 500 μm, respectively, at a Swedish WWTP equipped with a disc filter. Magni et al (2019) estimate a MP retention rate of 94%, 77% and 65% for particles above 500, below 500 and below 100 μm, respectively.…”

Section: Retention In Wwtpsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Preliminary European-Scale Assessment of Microplastics in Urban Wastewater

Obermaier

Pistocchi

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Microplastics (MP) are not well defined from an analytical point of view and their measurement in the environment is still challenging. At the same time, their increasingly widespread presence is raising concerns for human health and ecosystems. In this contribution, we present a preliminary European-scale assessment of the environmental input of MP through urban wastewater and urban runoff. We quantify the emissions associated with urban wastewater based on the range of observed concentrations in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) effluents, and the emissions from tire wear particles (TWP) by assuming that a percentage of the particles generated on roads eventually reaches surface waters. In spite of the large uncertainties entailed in the calculation, it is apparent that TWP dominate the input of total plastic loads into European surface waters. The management of urban runoff, road runoff, and combined sewer overflows (CSO) is essential to control the emissions of MP from urban areas. On the other hand, WWTPs retain the majority of MP in the sewage sludge. The spreading of sewage sludge onto soil therefore represents a potential pathway of MP from urban wastewater into the environment.

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Section: General Remarkssupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Retention In Wwtpsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Preliminary European-Scale Assessment of Microplastics in Urban Wastewater

Obermaier

Pistocchi

2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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“…Rasmussen et al [25] calculated the masses of plastics of >500 µm in a WWTP. They showed that the plant load was 202.2 kg/day, of which 73% was retained.…”

Section: Microplastic Fate In Conventional Water/wastewater-treatment...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reuse of Water Contaminated by Microplastics, the Effectiveness of Filtration Processes: A Review

Conesa

García

2022

Energies

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Water treatment generally does not specifically address the removal of microplastics (MPs). Nevertheless, treatment plants process water effectively, and the number of synthetic microparticles in effluents is usually very low. Still, discharge volumes from water-treatment plants are often elevated (reaching around 108 L/day), leading to the daily discharge of a substantial number of MPs and microfibers. Furthermore, MPs accumulate in the primary and secondary sludge, which in the end results in another environmental problem as they are currently used to amend soils, both for cultivation and forestry, leading to their dispersion. Something similar occurs with the treatment of water intended for human consumption, which has a much lower but still significant number of MPs. The amount of these pollutants being released into the environment depends on the processes that the water undergoes. One of the most-used treatment processes is rapid sand filtration, which is reviewed in this article. During the filtration process, MPs can break into smaller pieces, resulting in a greater number of plastic particles which mainly accumulate in sewage sludge. Thermal processes, such as incineration, carried out in facilities with the best available techniques in practice, could guarantee the safe disposal of highly MP-contaminated sewage sludges.

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“…road runoff, discharge from waste water treatment plants (WWTP), proximity to urban and industrial areas, and atmospheric deposition (Bergmann et al 2019 ; Grbić et al 2020 ; Horton et al 2017a ; Hurley et al 2018a ; Tibbetts et al 2018 ; Xiong et al 2018 ). There is a growing body of research establishing mass balance calculations for some microplastic sources (Boucher et al 2019 , Clayer et al 2021 , Prenner et al 2021 , Rasmussen et al 2021 ); yet whilst most studies of microplastic pollution postulate some potential sources of microplastic, fewer studies have thus far quantified such releases. As a result, it is not yet known to what extent specific sources operate over different geographic regions, in response to different catchment characteristics, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenically impacted lake catchments in Denmark reveal low microplastic pollution

Kallenbach

Friberg

Lusher

et al. 2022

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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Microplastics have been detected in lake environments globally, including in remote regions. Agricultural and populated areas are known to congregate several inputs and release pathways for microplastic. This study investigated microplastic (50–5000 µm) contamination in five Danish freshwater lakes with catchments dominated by arable land use. The concentrations in sediments (n = 3/site) and the zebra mussel, Dreissena polymorpha (n = 30/site), were calculated and compared with catchment characteristics and environmental parameters. Microplastic concentrations in sediment were relatively low (average 0.028 ± 0.017 items/g dry weight sediment) whilst only a single microplastic was found in the mussels (average 0.067 ± 0.249 items/10 individual). Hence, no relationship between the number of observed microplastics in sediment and mussels could be identified, nor could a relationship between concentration in sediment and environmental parameters. As all lakes studied received their water from moderate to heavily anthropogenically impacted catchments, it was expected that they would be sinks for microplastic with high bioavailability. Based on the results of the present study, D. polymorpha were found to not be contaminated by microplastics in the five study lakes. Thus, our results suggest that these mussels do not interact with microplastics at low concentrations. We speculate that the results on sediment and biota could be explained by several factors related to regional differences in plastic use, species characteristics, sampling size, and the fact that finding no microplastic is not always reported in the scientific literature. Thus, the paper provides insight into the dynamics between the catchment, lake, and biota in systems with low microplastic concentration.

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A complete mass balance for plastics in a wastewater treatment plant - Macroplastics contributes more than microplastics

Cited by 82 publications

References 44 publications

A Preliminary European-Scale Assessment of Microplastics in Urban Wastewater

A Preliminary European-Scale Assessment of Microplastics in Urban Wastewater

Reuse of Water Contaminated by Microplastics, the Effectiveness of Filtration Processes: A Review

Anthropogenically impacted lake catchments in Denmark reveal low microplastic pollution

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