Microplastics in sewage sludge from the wastewater treatment plants in China.

By Xiaowei Li, Lubei Chen, Q. Mei, B. Dong, Xiaohu Dai, G. Ding, E. Zeng. Water Research, 2018

818 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Sludge disposal such as land application is suspected as a significant source of microplastic (MP) pollution in the environment. To examine such a hypothesis, the present study was conducted to investigate the occurrence of MPs in sludge by analyzing 79 sewage sludge samples collected from 28 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in 11 Chinese provinces. MP concentrations in the sludge samples ranged from 1.60-56.4 × 103 particles per kilogram of dry sludge, with an average of 22.7 ± 12.1 × 103 particles per kilogram of dry sludge. Thereinto, the sludge-based MP contents were greater in eastern China than in western China and varied during different months. Their colors and types were mainly white (59.6%) and fibers (63%), respectively. Microscope Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy revealed that most of MPs belonged to polyolefin, acrylic fibers, polyethylene and polyamide. Some WWTP parameters, such as servicing area, proportion of industrial wastewater, secondary treatment and sludge dewatering may have affected MP concentrations in sludge. Based on the total sludge production in China, the average amount of sludge-based MPs entering into natural environmental was estimated to be 1.56 × 1014 particles per year. The findings confirmed that sewage sludge discharge is an important source of MP pollution in the environment. Further evaluation of the associated environmental hazards with MPs is deemed necessary.

Subfields: Biomaterials, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/faf70e6b46bb97909b6e35eb3254230ae8367557

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In Biomaterials

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Citations in the corpus

• Interactions between microplastics and soil fauna: A critical review (2021, background): “In China, the average annual quantity of MPs entering the soil environment from sewage sludge production is estimated to be 1.56 1014 particles (X. Li et al., 2018).”
• Potential Benefits and Risks for Soil Health Derived From the Use of Organic Amendments in Agriculture (2019, background): “Wastewater treatment plants are very effective at removing microplastics from the treated water [166], resulting in the accumulation of microplastics in the biosolids themselves [167].”