Microplastics from industrial sources: A known but overlooked problem

Karakurt O., Altuntaş O., Şimşek İ., Hatinoğlu D., SANİN F. D.

Journal of Water Process Engineering, cilt.72, 2025 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 72
  • Basım Tarihi: 2025
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.jwpe.2025.107487
  • Dergi Adı: Journal of Water Process Engineering
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, INSPEC
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: Industrial wastewaters, Microplastics, Organized industrial zones, Wastewater treatment plant
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Current studies suggest that industrial wastewaters can be major sources of microplastics (MPs), but specific studies are rare in regard to specific industries and organized industrial zones (OIZs). This study addresses this gap by analyzing two different OIZs and two selected industries from each in terms of their MPs concentrations, characteristics, their diurnal variation and the effect of pretreatments employed by the industries. One OIZ contains an industrial WWTP (IWWTP) so the effect of this plant by the analysis of wastewater from inlet, outlet as well as wastewater and sludge from specific units are evaluated. MPs encountered had a variety of sizes, but the smallest size (38 μm to 425 μm) dominated almost all the samples analyzed. Variety of plastics have been observed including the most common types as well as rare ones. MPs' relative abundances changed and diversity decreased after treatment. It is shown that IWWTPs can reduce MP concentrations up to 95 %, and results in the capture of 127 million particles each day. However, the results also show that industrial wastewaters can still emit 7.6 million particles, which indicates both the magnitude of the problem and the effectiveness of WWTPs, considering that the other OIZ without a WWTP discharges 384 million MPs daily.