Freshwater and airborne textile fibre populations are dominated by ‘natural’, not microplastic, fibres

Stanton, Thomas; Johnson, Matthew; Nathanail, Paul; MacNaughtan, William; Gomes, Rachel L.

Abstract

The potential role of natural textile fibres as environmental pollutants has been speculated upon by some environmental scientists, however, there is a general consensus that their biodegradability reduces their environmental threat. Whilst the risks that they pose remain poorly understood, their environmental prevalence has been noted in several recent microplastic pollution manuscripts. Here we highlight the extent to which natural textile fibres dominate fibre populations of upstream reaches of the River Trent, UK, as well as the atmospheric deposition within its catchment, over a twelve month microplastic sampling campaign. Across 223 samples, natural textile fibres represented 93.8% of the textile fibre population quantified. Moreover, though microplastic particles including synthetic fibres are known to be pervasive environmental pollutants, extruded textile fibres were absent from 82.8% of samples. Natural textile fibres were absent from just 9.7% of samples.

Citation

Stanton, T., Johnson, M., Nathanail, P., MacNaughtan, W., & Gomes, R. L. (2019). Freshwater and airborne textile fibre populations are dominated by ‘natural’, not microplastic, fibres. Science of the Total Environment, 666, 377-389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.278

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 17, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Feb 18, 2019
• Publication Date: May 20, 2019
• Deposit Date: Apr 14, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 19, 2020
• Journal: Science of The Total Environment
• Print ISSN: 0048-9697
• Electronic ISSN: 1879-1026
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 666
• Pages: 377-389
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.278
• Keywords: Textile fibres; Microplastic; Temporal variation; Atmospheric deposition; Surface water; Wastewater
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1609708
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969719307764?via%3Dihub
• Additional Information: This article is maintained by: Elsevier; Article Title: Freshwater and airborne textile fibre populations are dominated by ‘natural’, not microplastic, fibres; Journal Title: Science of The Total Environment; CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.278; Content Type: article; Copyright: © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
• Contract Date: Apr 15, 2019