Wastewater Discharge Transports Riverine Microplastics over Long Distances

Wastewater discharge from wastewater treatment plants continuously pumps microplastics into rivers, yet their transport distances within these waterways remain unknown. Herein, we developed a conceptual framework by synthesizing the microplastic data from the Yangtze River Basin to evaluate its tran...

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Published inEnvironmental science & technology Vol. 58; no. 34; pp. 15147 - 15158
Main Authors Chen, Cai, Cowger, Win, Nava, Veronica, van Emmerik, Tim H. M., Leoni, Barbara, Guo, Zhao-feng, Liu, Dong, He, Yu-qin, Xu, Yao-yang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States American Chemical Society 30.07.2024
Subjects
Discharge
Environmental factors
Microplastics
Plastic debris
Plastic pollution
pollution
riparian areas
River basin development
River basins
Rivers
technology
wastewater
Wastewater discharges
Wastewater treatment
Wastewater treatment plants
Water pollution
watersheds
Waterways
Yangtze River
Yangtze River
microplastics
wastewater discharge
spatial dependence
the Yangtze River Basin
basin scale
upstream boundary
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Summary:Wastewater discharge from wastewater treatment plants continuously pumps microplastics into rivers, yet their transport distances within these waterways remain unknown. Herein, we developed a conceptual framework by synthesizing the microplastic data from the Yangtze River Basin to evaluate its transport distances, quantifying a significant spatial dependence between large-scale wastewater discharge and riverine microplastics ( < 0.05). The presence of microplastics at a specific sampling site could be attributed to wastewater discharge within a large-scale range spanning >1000 km upstream, encompassing a substantial portion equivalent to one-third of the Yangtze River Basin. The dominance analysis indicated that the contribution of wastewater discharge in rivers with higher discharge (>100 m /s) to riverine microplastic pollution exceeded 65% within the Yangtze River Basin. The spatial dependence framework of riverine microplastics on wastewater discharge advances our prior understanding of the prevention and control of riverine microplastics by demonstrating that such pollution is not limited to nearby environmental factors.
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ISSN:0013-936X
1520-5851
1520-5851
DOI:10.1021/acs.est.4c02255