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Accumulation de microplastiques dans les dépôts de réseaux d’eaux usées unitaires et leur transfert vers l'environnement via les déversoirs d’orage
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Researchers investigated microplastic accumulation in the deposits of combined sewer networks and their transfer into the environment via stormwater overflow events, examining how wastewater infrastructure serves as a pathway for microplastic release during rain-driven discharge.
International audience
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Fate of microplastics in urban wastewater treatment plants and their contribution to the receiving river via effluent discharge
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Monitoring of five wastewater treatment plants in Guangzhou, China found 97–99% microplastic removal efficiency, yet effluents still discharged up to 4.5 billion microplastic particles per day into receiving rivers, while removed particles concentrated in sludge applied to agricultural land. This dual pathway — aquatic discharge and land application of sludge — makes wastewater treatment plants a major conduit for microplastics entering both freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems.
Occurrence, Fate, and Removal of Microplastics in Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs)
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Researchers reviewed how sewage treatment plants handle microplastics, finding that while these facilities remove a large fraction from wastewater, they also concentrate microplastics in sewage sludge that is then spread on agricultural land — potentially transferring plastic pollution from water to soil and food systems.
Distribution and Removal Efficiency of Microplastics in Urban Wastewater Treatment Plants
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Researchers tracked microplastics through 12 treatment stages at a large municipal wastewater plant using high-throughput infrared spectroscopy, finding 83% overall removal driven primarily by gravity sedimentation in clarifier tanks, with larger, denser, and fibrous particles removed most efficiently.
Transport and fate of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants: implications to environmental health
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Researchers reviewed how wastewater treatment plants act as pathways for microplastics entering terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, finding that treated effluents carry both microplastic particles and associated chemical and biological contaminants into the broader environment.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.