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Characteristics of Microplastics Content and Estimation of Microplastics Outflow in G City Sewage Treatment Plant
Summary
Researchers analyzed microplastics at every stage of a sewage treatment plant, finding that while 97.8% of incoming particles were removed, billions of microplastics still escaped into the river daily and millions more were recycled back into the environment through sewage sludge used as fertilizer.
Microplastics (MP) are small plastic particles in the environment. MP are plastics smaller than 5 mm and main sources are from cosmetic products, laundry, industrial processes and sewage treatment plant. MP that generated from use of people mainly enter sewage treatment plants. Although MP were removed from the final effluent more than 90%, large amount of MP are flow into the sewage treatment plant, lots of untreated MP is being discharged into the water environment. MP entering the water environment adversely affect the ecosystem due to adsorbed persistent organic pollutants (POPs) substances in MP and chemical susbstance added during plastic production. In order to confirm sewage treatment recudtion rate in G city, each sewage treatment process and sludge were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively and estimate the amount of microplastics flow out into the environment. As a result of the analysis, 595.4 MP/L in sewage influent and 13.1 MP/L in the final effluent and the reduction efficiency was 97.8%. Microplastics contained in the final sludge were 70,571 MP/kg. Untreated microplastics from sewage treatment plant flowing into the river is 2,371 million per day, and it is possible to 811,566,500 microplastics were recycled to fertilizer, it can be leaked into the soil.