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Biosolid amendments as drivers for microplastic pollution in soil: Measurements and insight from multiple analytical methods in an agricultural field study
Summary
Farms often spread "biosolids" (treated sewage sludge and animal waste) on fields as fertilizer, but this study shows that practice can also introduce microplastic pollution into agricultural soil, with fields that received sludge showing different plastic contamination than untreated fields. Since crops grow in this soil and microplastics can potentially work their way into our food and water, this raises questions about how common farming practices might be a hidden source of plastic exposure in our diets.
The ESR05-03 data is split into 4 parts: Part 1—Infrared spectra data: The data set contains chemical characterizations of microplastic particles measured by FTIR. Microplastics were extracted from anaerobic digestate from animal manure obtained from a green energy plant. The data is stored in a CSV file (e.g., D1-2-libsearch-after valid.csv) ESR05-03-part 1-digestate data.zip, while metadata can be found in ESR05-03-part 1-digestate data.doc Part 2—Infrared spectra data: The data set contains chemical characterizations of microplastic particles measured by FTIR. Microplastics were extracted from agricultural soils receiving sludge from 2004 to 2014. The data is stored in a CSV file (e.g., CF1S1-REP1-after validation.csv) ESR05-03-part 2-CF soil data.zip, while meta data can be found in ESR05-03-part 2-CF soil data.doc Part 3—Infrared spectra data: The data set contains chemical characterizations of microplastic particles measured by FTIR. Microplastics were extracted from soil with no history of sewage sludge application and farming practices. The data is stored in a CSV file (e.g., HF1S1-after valid.csv) ESR05-03-part 03-HF soil zip folder, while meta data can be found in ESR05-03-part 03-HF soil data.doc Part 4— Infrared spectra data: The data set contains chemical characterizations of microplastic particles measured by FTIR. Microplastics were extracted from procedural blanks. The data is stored in a CSV file (e.g., CF-blank-after valid.csv) in ESR05-03-part 04-procedural blank data.zip, while meta data can be found in ESR05-03-part 04-procedural blank data.doc