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The role of wastewater treatment plants in surface water contamination by plastic pollutants
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This review examined how wastewater treatment plants act as both a barrier and a source of microplastic contamination in surface waters, finding that while they remove a large fraction of incoming microplastics, significant quantities still pass through in treated effluent. Improving filtration is identified as a key strategy for reducing plastic pollution in rivers and coastal waters.
The aim of this paper was to review the literature data regarding the physico-chemical characteristic of plastic pollutants discharged with municipal sewage, the practical possibility of removing microplastic particles from wastewater during different treatment steps in WWTPs and the problem of surface water contamination within them. Microplastics (the size range of 1 nm to < 5 mm), have been recognized as an emerging threat, as well as an ecotoxicological and ecological risk for water ecosystems. Municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are mentioned as the main point sources of microplastics in an aquatic environment. Microplastic particles can be effectively removed in the primary treatment zones via solids skimming and sludge settling processes. Different tertiary treatment processes such as: gravity sand filtration, discfilter, air flotation and membrane filtration provide substantial additional removal of microplastics, and the efficiency of wastewater treatment process can be at a removal level of 99.9%. Nevertheless, given the large volumes of effluent constantly discharged to receivers, even tertiary level WWTPs may constitute a considerable source of microplastics in the surface water.
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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.