Microplastic pieces from wastewater treatment plants getting into rivers, says study

Microplastic pieces could be escaping from filters of wastewater treatment plants and entering rivers to contaminate drinking water, research by the Loyola University Chicago has claimed.

These microplastics measure less than 5mm and have become a serious environmental concern, given the harmful effects they have on ocean life. While majority of the microplastics entering oceans comes from rivers, little research has been done into their impact of freshwater ecosystems.

Many rivers are drinking water sources for communities.

Loyola University Chicago assistant professor Timothy Hoellein was reported by Waterworld.com as saying that these small pieces of plastic are consumed by fish in rivers, which then get into the human foodchain.

Hoellein said: "Rivers have less water in them (than oceans), and we rely on that water much more intensely."

Research by Hoellein and his team found that water downstream from wastewater treatment facilities carried higher levels of microplastics than water upstream from the facilities.

Hoellein’s team studied ten rivers in Illinois as part of the research titled ‘Consider a source: Microplastic in rivers is abundant, mobile, and selects for unique bacterial assemblages’. This study supports earlier research findings carried out by Hoellein’s team.

While initial findings show that treatment facilities are capturing 90% of the microplastics, the amount of microplastics released every day through treated wastewater into rivers is still significant, with 15,000 microplastic particles from the 4.5 million at each of these treatment plants.

The research team found that one source of microplastics in 80% of the rivers studied was from wastewater treatment plants.

Hoellein was quoted by Waterworld.com as saying: "[Wastewater treatment plants] do a great job of doing what they are designed to do, which is treat waste for major pathogens and remove excess chemicals like carbon and nitrogen from the water that is released back into the river. But they weren’t designed to filter out these tiny particles."

According to Hoellein, research on microplastics in rivers could help in gaining a better understanding of the complete lifecycle of microplastics until they reach oceans, reported Agu.org.

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Image: Microplastics entering into rivers could contaminate drinking water supplies. Photo: courtesy of Martin Wagner et al/Wikipedia.