20th February 2020 7:58 am

How to find microplastic fibres in the environment

How to find microplastic fibres in the environment – Some questions

Are there microplastic fibres in tap/drinking water?

Are there fibres in stream/river/sea water? 

Are there fibres on the beach in the sand? Or in soil?

Are there fibres in house dust?

Can the number of fibres seen be related to: 

Water treatment works? 

Water coming into a river from road drainage? 

Near a plastics factory?

Near a rubbish dump?

How many?

What type of fibres? 

Where could they have originated from?

How to look for microplastic in your samples

In water

• Measure the amount of water. Half a litre or a litre is a good quantity of water to work with.
• Filter through the filter paper, held by the funnel.
• Open the filter paper at the seam. This will be easy when the paper is wet.
• Label edge of the filter paper with the sample identification code.
• The paper can be looked at wet or dry under the microscope. 
• Count the number of definite and possible fibres.
• Immediately note the results in your results book.
• Work out how many fibres would be in a litre of the water.

In sand/soil. This can be done on the beach/river bank or back at school/home. 

• Put a measured amount of sand/soil into a clean container. ( glass jars are good for this). The measure of sand/soil should be the same each time. For example, a level spoonful. 
• Dissolve salt ( table salt, sodium chloride) in water until no more will dissolve.
• Add enough water to cover the sand/soil. 
• Shake this up for 5 minutes. 
• Leave to settle. 
• Then take a droplet of water from the surface of the settled mixture. Place this on a petri dish. 
• Look at this droplet of water under the microscope. Count definite and possible fibres.
• The droplet can be allowed to dry out on the petri dish and looked at. The microplastic will not go away.
• Repeat the water droplet three times.
• Immediately note the results in your results book.
• Estimate the number of fibres in the sand/soil sample.