Environmental Forensic: Sampling microplastics for Environmental Forensic applications

Environmental forensics involves the investigation of a diverse range of pollutants that have been accidentally or deliberately released into the environment, to understand their origin and aid the courts in attributing responsibility. For decades, pollutants such as oil and heavy metals, have been the focus of investigation. More recently, emerging pollutants such as plastic waste have become of interest to environmental forensic scientists (Aswini and Varghese, 2020). Plastics have revolutionised our daily lives and have provided significant benefits for many industries; however, although the societal benefits have been immense; there is no doubt that plastic has developed into a considerable environmental problem, resulting in calls for plastics to be classed as a hazardous waste (Rochman et al., 2013a).