Microplastics Galore!

It's unfortunate that microplastics are everywhere because of humanity's reliance on plastic items and the exceptionally low cost of plastic production. Since plastics are ubiquitous, it is important to determine what plastics are introduced to the environment from an external source and what already exists in situ. For example, by wearing synthetic clothing people act as sources of plastics in the environment but these sources are not necessarily external because the source and the location of plastics are within the same geographic space. A counterexample would be plastic bottles at the beach that were brought on a beach trip; the plastic pollution caused by the bottles are external from their origins. All of this to say that assessing plastic pollution in the environment requires an understanding of where the plastic is coming from.

In my work I wear cotton clothing to prevent plastic contamination in my samples and I also collect blank samples throughout the sample processing phase to determine the level of contamination that exists throughout the processing steps. By averaging the amount of microplastics in the sampling and processing blanks and subtracting the amounts from the field samples, I can make a confident conclusion that the microplastics within the samples are particles within the sediments and not caused by contamination in the lab. The microfibers that you can see here may have come from a number of places, and though I will count and record their presence, the statistical analysis I do will help me determine the likelihood of these particles existing in the samples versus existing as contamination from the lab.

I'm almost done working through and counting the spring samples, which means I have processed three seasons worth of samples and data. Once I get working on the summer samples I will have data for an entire year of research, which is a big milestone for my work. I will still have two more trips to collect data (more on why in October), but I can see everything starting to come together. Soon I will be focusing more on analyzing the particles and analyzing the nematodes instead of the manual labor and processing required for the early stages of my research. I can't wait to bring you along for the ride.

---