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Review Tier 2

Microplastics in wastewater treatment plants: A literature review of sampling methods and results

This review chapter summarizes sampling methods and reported microplastic concentrations in wastewater treatment plants across multiple studies. The review highlights wide variation in reported results and calls for standardized monitoring methods to enable meaningful comparisons of microplastic removal efficiency across different treatment facilities.

2020 IWA Publishing eBooks
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in Wastewater Treatment Plants: Characteristics, Occurrence and Removal Technologies

This review summarizes how wastewater treatment plants are a major pathway for microplastics entering the environment, covering the types, sizes, and sources of microplastics found in wastewater. While treatment plants can remove many microplastics, significant amounts still escape into rivers and oceans through treated water and sludge. The authors evaluate various removal technologies and recommend advanced treatment methods to better prevent microplastics from reaching water supplies.

2024 Water 46 citations
Article Tier 2

The fate of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants: An overview of source and remediation technologies

This review examines how wastewater treatment plants serve as key pathways for microplastic entry into the environment, analyzing removal efficiencies across different treatment stages and identifying advanced technologies for improved microplastic remediation.

2022 Environmental Technology & Innovation 159 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in wastewater treatment plants: Sources, properties, removal efficiency, removal mechanisms, and interactions with pollutants

This review examines microplastic sources, properties, removal efficiency, and removal mechanisms across different wastewater treatment plant stages. Researchers found that while treatment plants remove a significant portion of microplastics, they cannot eliminate them entirely, resulting in the continued release of millions of particles into the environment daily through effluent and sludge.

2023 Water Science & Technology 128 citations
Article Tier 2

Research progress on microplastics in wastewater treatment plants: A holistic review

This review provides a holistic assessment of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants, covering sampling methods, occurrence patterns across treatment stages, removal efficiencies, and the environmental risks posed by microplastic discharge through effluent and sludge.

2022 Journal of Environmental Management 88 citations
Article Tier 2

Recent advances on microplastics pollution and removal from wastewater systems: A critical review

This review summarizes the latest research on microplastic detection, occurrence, and removal in wastewater treatment plants. While treatment plants can remove 57-99% of microplastics depending on the stage, significant amounts still escape into the environment through treated water and sludge. The findings highlight the need for advanced treatment methods to prevent microplastics from reaching waterways and ultimately human water supplies.

2023 Journal of Environmental Management 81 citations
Article Tier 2

Occurrence, Characteristics, and Removal of Microplastics in Wastewater Treatment Plants

This review summarizes the occurrence, characteristics, and removal efficiency of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants, highlighting how these facilities simultaneously act as sinks trapping microplastics and as sources releasing them into surrounding aquatic and terrestrial environments.

2025
Article Tier 2

Fate and occurrence of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants

This review summarizes recent research on the abundance and removal of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants, examining how different treatment stages capture or release microplastic particles and assessing the overall efficiency of current infrastructure.

2023 Environmental Science Advances 8 citations
Article Tier 2

Characterization and Removal of Microplastics in Different Stages of Wastewater Treatment Plants

This review examines the types, shapes, and sizes of microplastics found in domestic and industrial wastewaters and evaluates the removal efficiency of different treatment processes across wastewater treatment plant stages, noting that no existing process achieves 100% removal.

2024
Article Tier 2

Microplastics: Transport and removal at wastewater treatment plants

This book chapter reviews the transport and removal of microplastics at wastewater treatment plants, summarizing efficiency data across different treatment processes. Even high-performing plants release microplastics into water bodies, making treated effluent a significant ongoing source of environmental contamination.

2019 IWA Publishing eBooks 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics in wastewater plants: A review of sources, characteristics, distribution and removal technologies

This review provides a comprehensive look at how microplastics enter, move through, and are removed from wastewater treatment plants. Researchers found that while treatment processes can remove a significant portion of microplastics from water, large quantities still escape into rivers and oceans. The study highlights the need for improved treatment technologies and better monitoring to reduce microplastic discharge from these facilities.

2024 Journal of Contaminant Hydrology 23 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics removal in wastewater treatment plants: a critical review

This critical review of microplastic removal in wastewater treatment plants examines removal efficiencies across different treatment stages, finding that while WWTPs remove the majority of microplastics from influent, they still release millions of particles daily and are a major pathway for microplastics entering aquatic environments.

2020 Environmental Science Water Research & Technology 398 citations
Article Tier 2

Occurrence and Removal of Microplastics in Wastewater Treatment Plants: Perspectives on Shape, Type, and Density

Researchers compiled data from multiple countries on microplastic removal efficiency across different stages of wastewater treatment plants. They found that removal rates varied widely, from 48% in some facilities to over 90% in others, depending on the treatment technologies employed. The study suggests that while conventional wastewater treatment can capture a significant portion of microplastics, advanced tertiary treatment methods are needed to further reduce discharge into the environment.

2024 Water 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Influence of wastewater treatment process on pollution characteristics and fate of microplastics

Researchers investigated microplastic abundance and removal efficiency across four wastewater treatment plants using different treatment technologies, finding influent concentrations between 539 and 1,290 particles per liter that were reduced substantially by primary and secondary treatment. Smaller microplastic particles proved hardest to remove and most likely to persist in final effluent.

2021 Marine Pollution Bulletin 45 citations
Article Tier 2

Navigating microplastics in wastewater treatment: Understanding analysis, mitigation, removal strategies, impact, and current knowledge gaps

Researchers reviewed how wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) handle microplastic pollution, finding that while WWTPs significantly reduce microplastic levels, they still release hundreds of particles per liter into the environment daily, and inconsistent testing methods make it hard to compare results across studies.

2024 Journal of environmental chemical engineering 12 citations
Article Tier 2

Toward a Better Understanding of the Contribution of Wastewater Treatment Plants to Microplastic Pollution in Receiving Waterways

This review examines how wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) contribute to microplastic pollution in receiving waterways, synthesizing evidence on removal efficiencies of different treatment stages and the characteristics of microplastics that escape into the environment. Researchers found that while WWTPs remove the majority of incoming microplastics, they remain a significant source of microplastic discharge due to the large volumes of wastewater processed daily.

2022 Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 14 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics and Wastewater Treatment Plants—A Review

This review examines the role of wastewater treatment plants in retaining microplastics before they enter the environment. Studies show that no wastewater treatment method achieves complete microplastic removal, making treatment plants themselves point sources of microplastic discharge into aquatic environments. The review also discusses concerns about microplastic-laden sewage sludge being applied to agricultural land.

2020 Journal of Water Resource and Protection 161 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic pollution is widely detected in US municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent

Researchers conducted a wide survey of US municipal wastewater treatment plants and found microplastics widely present in effluent, confirming that conventional treatment does not fully remove microplastics and that treatment plants are ongoing sources of environmental contamination.

2016 Environmental Pollution 1124 citations
Article Tier 2

Methods to recover and characterize microplastics in wastewater treatment plants

This review systematically examines methods used to recover and characterize microplastics from wastewater treatment plants, identifying key methodological challenges including inconsistent extraction procedures, contamination risks, and varying identification techniques that complicate cross-study comparisons. The authors provide recommendations for standardizing WWTP microplastic analysis to improve the reliability and comparability of removal efficiency data.

2022 Case Studies in Chemical and Environmental Engineering 55 citations
Article Tier 2

Method development for microplastic analysis in wastewater

This book chapter describes methods developed to detect and measure microplastics in wastewater samples, addressing the lack of standardized analytical protocols. Reliable detection methods are essential because wastewater treatment plants are a major pathway through which land-based microplastics enter aquatic environments.

2020 IWA Publishing eBooks 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic contamination in wastewater: Sources, distribution, detection and remediation through physical and chemical-biological methods

This review covers how microplastics end up in wastewater from sources like textile fibers, personal care microbeads, and broken-down plastic debris, and how they often survive the treatment process. Current removal methods like filtration and chemical degradation are costly and not fully effective. The lack of standardized ways to measure microplastics in wastewater makes it difficult to assess the full scope of human exposure through water systems.

2024 The Science of The Total Environment 118 citations
Article Tier 2

Advancements and Regulatory Situation in Microplastics Removal from Wastewater and Drinking Water: A Comprehensive Review

This review examines current methods for detecting and removing microplastics from wastewater and drinking water treatment plants. Researchers found that while existing treatment processes remove many microplastics, some particles still pass through to discharge into natural water bodies. The study also provides an overview of regulations and policies in the United States addressing microplastic contamination in water systems.

2024 Microplastics 30 citations
Article Tier 2

Where do they go? A review of the wastewater treatment process and its impact on the fate of microplastics

This review examines the fate of microplastics across the physical, chemical, and biological stages of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) processes, finding that WWTPs act as both sources and destinations for microplastics while not being designed to remove them, and surveying new removal strategies.

2025 Detritus
Review Tier 2

Microplastics in Wastewater Treatment Plants: A literature review of sampling methods and results

This literature review summarizes sampling methods and results from studies on microplastics in wastewater treatment plants, comparing approaches and findings across multiple studies. The review is part of a broader book on microplastics in the human water cycle.

2019 IWA Publishing eBooks