Microplastic emissions from household washing machines: preliminary findings from Greater Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
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RECENT ENVIRONMENTAL GEOCHEMICAL TRENDS
Microplastic emissions from household washing machines: preliminary findings from Greater Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) Sarva Mangala Praveena 1,2
&
Melati Syahira Asmawi 1 & Josephine Liew Ying Chyi 3
Received: 7 July 2020 / Accepted: 9 September 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Microplastics have been recognized as emerging pollutants with potential ecotoxicological impact. The contribution of washing machine use to microplastics emission at the household level is still not completely understood. This study aims to characterize microplastic emissions in laundry water from household washing machines from Greater Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia). Microplastics were found between 6.9E-3 and 0.183 g/m3 in laundry water at household level. Microplastic shapes of fiber and fragment consist of polyester, nylon, and acrylic with average length of 2258.59 μm and were also identified in these laundry water samples. Questionnaire survey findings demonstrated fabric properties and washing parameters both likely contribute to microplastic emissions in laundry water and, ultimately, wastewater treatment plant influent. The impact of fabric properties and washing parameter factors on microplastic emission in laundry water at the household level merits further investigation. The findings of this study demonstrated the potential of laundry water as a microplastic source at the household level within a developing country. Keywords Microplastics . Emission . Laundry water . Source
Introduction Microplastic pollutants are of increasing interest to both researchers and the public (Novotna et al. 2019). Primary microplastics originate from clothing, personal care products, and cosmetics, while secondary microplastics are derived from the degradation of large plastics. Microplastics are synthetic particles less than 5 mm in size and are found in a variety of shapes,
Responsible Editor: Philippe Garrigues Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10795-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sarva Mangala Praveena [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
2
Laboratory of Food Safety and Food Integrity, Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Food Security, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
3
Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
colors, and plastic polymer types found in both aquatic and terrestrial environments (Galvão et al. 2020). The presence of microplastics in aquatic and terrestrial environments is a serious concern with respect to toxicity effects on biota in multiple trophic levels and, ultimately, to humans (Anbumani and Kakkar 2018). With the rapid turnover of the “fast fashion” sector, over 42 million tons of synthetic fiber
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