Emerging investigator series: open dumping and burning: an overlooked source of terrestrial microplastics in underserved communities
Kendra Z. Hess, Kyle Forsythe, Xuewen Wang, Andrea Arredondo-Navarro, Gwen Tipling, Jesse Jones, Melissa Mata, Victoria A. Hughes, Christine Martin, John Doyle, Justin Scott, Matteo Minghetti, Andrea Jilling, José M. Cerrato, Eliane El Hayek, Jorge González-Estrella
Abstract
soil) equals or exceeds reported concentrations from currently understood sources of MPs including biosolids application and other agricultural practices. Attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed infrared (ATR-FTIR) identified polyethylene as the dominant polymer across all sites (46.2-84.8%). We also detected rayon (≤11.5%), polystyrene (up to 11.5%), polyethylene terephthalate (≤5.1), polyvinyl chloride (≤4.4%), polyester (≤3.1), and acrylic (≤2.2%). Burned MPs accounted for 76.3 to 96.9% of the MPs found in both community wide dumping sites. These results indicate that solid waste dumping and burning activities are a major source of thermally oxidized MPs for the surrounding terrestrial environment with potential to negatively affect underserved communities.