Recipient Organization
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE
(N/A)
RIVERSIDE,CA 92521
Performing Department
Environmental Sciences
Non Technical Summary
Microplastic particles (size of 1 μm - 5 mm) are a contaminant of emerging concern in wastewater and biosolids. Widespread microplastic contamination (Barrows et al., 2018), ease of ingestion, and toxicity of inherent and adsorbed compounds (Coffin et al., 2018) heightens the potential for bioaccumulation and impacts to ecosystems and human health (Teuten et al., 2009; Setälä et al., 2014; Barboza et al., 2018). This proposed work focuses on characterizing environmental loading of microplastics from wastewater and biosolids, and evaluating their subsequent fate and transport in the context of integrated watershed to global scale environmental microplastic pollution cascades. Fundamental knowledge gaps persist regarding the abundance and distribution of environmental microplastic pollution (Doyle et al., 2011; Hardesty et al., 2017), hampering regional conversations on management strategies (OPC and NOAA MDP, 2018; van Sebille et al., 2015). Improved monitoring and modeling tools to track microplastic pollution source, pathway and fate can guide more cost-effective source reduction and mitigation measures (Cole et al., 2011; Zhang, 2017), which must incorporate fluxes from wastewater treatment processes. Products of this research will help guide the use/application/reuse of wastewater treatment products in terms of the potential environmental and human health impacts of associated microplastics.ReferencesBarboza, L.G.A., Dick Vethaak, A., Lavorante, B., Lundebye, A., Guilhermino, L. 2018. Marine microplastic debris: An emerging issue for food security, food safety and human health. Marine Pollution Bulletin. 133:336-48.Barrows, A.P.W., Cathey, S.E., Petersen, C.W. 2018. Marine environment microfiber contamination: Global patterns and the diversity of microparticle origins. Environmental Pollution. 237:275-84.Coffin, S., Dudley, S., Taylor, A., Wolf, D., Wang, J., Lee, I., Schlenk, D. 2018. Comparisons of analytical chemistry and biological activities of extracts from North Pacific gyre plastics with UV-treated and untreated plastics using in vitro and in vivo models. Environment International. 121:942-954.Cole, M., Lindeque, P., Halsband, C., Galloway, T.S. 2011. Microplastics as contaminants in the marine environment: A review. Marine Pollution Bulletin. 62(12):2588-2597.Doyle, M.J., Watson, W., Bowlin, N.M., Sheavly, S.B. 2011. Plastic particles in coastal pelagic ecosystems of the Northeast Pacific ocean. Mar. Environ. Res. 71(1):41-52.Hardesty, B.D., Harari, J., Isobe, A., Lebreton, L., Maximenko, N., Potemra, J., van Sebille, E., Vethaak, A.D., Wilcox, C. 2017. Using Numerical Model Simulations to Improve the Understanding of Micro-plastic Distribution and Pathways in the Marine Environment. Frontiers in Marine Science. 4(30).OPC and NOAA MDP. 2018. California Ocean Protection Council, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program. California Ocean Litter Prevention Strategy: Addressing Marine Debris from Source to Sea. 47 pp.Setälä, O., Fleming-Lehtinen, V., Lehtiniemi, M. 2014. Ingestion and transfer of microplastics in the planktonic food web. Environmental Pollution. 185:77-83.Teuten, E.L., Saquing, J.M., Knappe, D.R.U., Barlaz, M.A., Jonsson, S., Björn, A., Rowland, S.J., Thompson, R.C., Galloway, T.S., Yamashita, R., Ochi, D., Watanuki, Y., Moore, C., Viet, P.H., Tana, T.S., Prudente, M., Boonyatumanond, R., Zakaria, M.P., Akkhavong, K., Ogata, Y., Hirai, H., Iwasa, S., Mizukawa, K., Hagino, Y., Imamura, A., Saha, M., Takada, H. 2009. Transport and release of chemicals from plastics to the environment and to wildlife. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 364(1526):2027-2045.van Sebille, E., Wilcox, C., Lebreton, L., Maximenko, N., Hardesty, B.D., van Franeker, J.A., Eriksen, M., Siegel, D., Galgani, F., Law, K.L. 2015. A global inventory of small floating plastic debris. Environmental Research Letters. 10(12):124006.Zhang, H. 2017. Transport of microplastics in coastal seas. Estuarine and Coastal Shelf Science. 199:74-86.
Animal Health Component
25%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
50%
Applied
25%
Developmental
25%
Goals / Objectives
Evaluate the short- and long-term chemistry and bioavailability of nutrients, potentially toxic inorganic trace elements, and pharmaceuticals and personal care products (TOrCs) in residuals, reclaimed water, and amended soils in order to assess the environmental and health risk-based effects of their application at a watershed scale. Specific tasks: (i) To develop and evaluate in vitro (including chemical speciation) and novel in vivo methods to correlate human and ecological health responses with risk-based bioavailability of trace elements and TOrCs in residuals and residual-treated soils. (ii) Predict the long-term bioavailability and toxicity of trace elements and TOrCs in residual-amended urban, agricultural and contaminated soils. (iii) Evaluate long-term effects of residuals application and reclaimed wastewater irrigation on fate and transport of nutrients, trace elements, TOrCs, and emergence/spread of antibiotic resistance in high application rate systems. (iv) Evaluate plant uptake and ecological effects of potentially toxic trace elements and TOrCs from soils amended with residuals and reclaimed wastewater.
Project Methods
Wastewater, biosolids, soils and samples from a range of environmental media are collected and evaluated for microplastic concentration and character. Media application or advection rates are also evaluated and multiplied by microplastic concentrations to calculate microplastic fluxes. A range of studies will be conducted at the field, watershed and regional scales to evaluate microplastic sources, transport and fate, and develop simple empirical models to describe these processes.Laboratory Analysis: An adaptive laboratory extraction protocol will depend on organic matter and sediment abundance. Coarse microplastic and macroplastic samples will first be sorted and digitally imaged under a microscope. All bulk water samples and blanks for fine microplastics will be transferred through a 1 mm sieve to a stainless steel holding tank for subsequent filtration. If the sample contains less sediment than would clog the filter, the sample will be directly filtered onto a 1 μm polycarbonate track etched filter (Erni-Cassola et al., 2017). If excess sediment is present, the sample will be centrifuged, the supernatant siphoned off, 100 ml of saturated CaCl2 solution mixed with the sediment (1.4 g/ml, Maes et al., 2017), which will then undergo an additional round of centrifugation and siphoning. The siphoned supernatant will then be filtered. Each filtered sample will undergo organic matter digestion following the Loeder et al. (2017) Universal Enzymatic Purification Protocol and will be stained with nile red for subsequent automated fluorescent microscopy of particles down to 1 μm (Erni-Cassola et al., 2017; Maes et al., 2017).All microplastic extraction steps have been assessed for recovery efficiency (mean = 80%) and contamination rates (mean = 3, primarily microfibers) using spiked and blank sample analysis. Precautions against contamination include the use of cotton garments by lab personnel and covered or glove bag (100 nm filtered air supply) protected sample handling. Blank samples run in tandem through sample collection and analysis will be used to quantify contamination rates and characteristics. Samples that do not differ significantly from blanks will be scored as non-detect.The macroplastic and coarse and fine microplastic particles in each sample will be characterized in terms of the following four attributes: count, color, projected dimensions (surface area), and polymer type and their total weight recorded. All macroplastics and coarse microplastics will be digitally imaged under microscopes, counted, evaluated for color, and manually analyzed for chemical composition with Raman spectroscopy. All fine microplastics will be processed through an automated fluorescence micro-imaging bench to obtain particle count, projected dimensions, shape and color characterization, and then subsampled for chemical composition analysis using Raman spectroscopy with a 785 nm laser, which is insignificantly affected by the fluorescence of nile red dye (Erni-Cassola et al., 2017). Total fine microplastic surface area for each sample will be computed from total particle projected surface area, and subsequently used to estimate mass by multiplying the surface area by mean particle thickness dividing by mean plastic density obtained from composition analysis. Each particle will be characterized in terms of color and surface area, and approximately 10% will be characterized for polymer type.References:Erni-Cassola, G., Gibson, M.I., Thompson, R.C., Christie-Oleza, J.A. 2017. Lost, but Found with Nile Red: A Novel Method for Detecting and Quantifying Small Microplastics (1 mm to 20 μm) in Environmental Samples. Environmental Science and Technology. 51(23):13641-8.Loeder, M.G.J., Imhof, H.K., Ladehoff, M., Loschel, L.A., Lorenz, C., Mintenig, S., Piehl, S., Primpke, S., Schrank, I., Laforsch, C., Gerdts, G. 2017. Enzymatic purification of microplastics in environmental samples. Environ. Sci. Technol. 51(24):14283-14292.Maes, T., Jessop, R., Wellner, N., Haupt, K., Mayes, A.G. 2017. A rapid-screening approach to detect and quantify microplastics based on fluorescent tagging with Nile Red. Scientific Reports. 7:44501.