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Prevention and control strategies for non-regulated industrial microplastic spills
Summary
Researchers reviewed prevention and control strategies for industrial microplastic spills — particularly plastic pellet losses from the plastics processing industry — which are not yet comprehensively regulated despite representing a large and identifiable source of primary microplastic pollution. They examined existing and proposed regulatory frameworks, including a European Commission proposal for pellet handling regulations, and evaluated detection and response measures for unregulated industrial spill events.
Microplastics caused by industrial activity are still at an early stage of research and, in general, there is a significant lack of knowledge about the specific industries that contribute to microplastic pollution (Wang et al., 2018). In fact, studies on marine plastics and microplastics do not usually report their potential industrial origin (Schwarz et al., 2019), due to the difficulty of distinguishing them. However, in some cases it is possible to distinguish the industrial origin of primary microplastics, such as pellets used by the plastic processing industry. Pellets are one of the main types of microplastics found on the marine coastline due to losses in the handling and transport processes (Mendoza, 2022; OSPAR Commission, 2017). According to European Commission (2023), between 52,140 and 184,290 tonnes of pellets were lost to the EU environment in 2019. Although the European Commission (2023) has recently published for the first time a proposal for a Regulation to prevent unintentional leakage of pellets, no specific control of microplastics is currently included in the regulations on industrial discharges, since in addition, there are still no standardised procedures for the analytical determination of microplastics in environmental samples. The aim of this study is therefore to identify the standard parameters included in the current industrial discharge regulations, which could potentially detect a discharge of pellet-type microplastics from the plastics industry, in a hypothetical control of storm water discharges. In collaboration with URA (Basque Water Agency), the public agency in charge of controlling internal basins of the Basque Country (Spain), the suitability of several parameters usually included in the industrial discharge authorisations for the determination of the organic fraction of solids in an aqueous sample, has been evaluated and verified. Finally, several measures for the control and containment of microplastic discharges from industry are also proposed. Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/558879/document
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