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Microplastics in Sewage Sludge: Effects of Treatment

Elsevier eBooks 2016 8 citations

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Current Progress of Microplastics in Sewage Sludge

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Researchers reviewed the presence of microplastics in sewage sludge, finding that while wastewater treatment plants capture most microplastics from water, the resulting sludge becomes a concentrated reservoir that can spread microplastics to agricultural soils when applied as fertilizer.

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Researchers reviewed how microplastics accumulate in sewage sludge — the byproduct of wastewater treatment — posing a significant environmental risk when sludge is applied to agricultural land. Because sludge is commonly used as fertilizer, microplastics from many sources can end up in soils and eventually in the food supply.

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Researchers reviewed how sewage treatment plants handle microplastics, finding that while these facilities remove a large fraction from wastewater, they also concentrate microplastics in sewage sludge that is then spread on agricultural land — potentially transferring plastic pollution from water to soil and food systems.

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This review examines the occurrence, fate, and transformation of microplastics throughout wastewater treatment biosolids streams, noting that conventional treatment effectively concentrates MPs in solid biosolids, roughly 50% of which are land-applied as agricultural fertilizer. Land application of biosolid-laden MPs represents a major but often overlooked terrestrial contamination pathway, enabling plastics to accumulate in farmland soils, enter crops, and ultimately reach humans through the food supply.

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