How can we help to clean micro plastics?

1. Membrane Filtration: This process involves passing water through a membrane with a pore size small enough to capture microplastics while allowing clean water to pass through. Ultrafiltration and nanofiltration membranes with pore sizes in the range of 0.001 to 0.1 microns are typically used.

2. Ocean currents are the continuous, predictable, directional movement of seawater driven by gravity, wind (Coriolis Effect), and water density. Ocean water moves in two directions: horizontally and vertically. Horizontal movements are referred to as currents, while vertical changes are called upwellings or downwellings. This abiotic system is responsible for the transfer of heat, variations in biodiversity, and Earth’s climate system.

2.1. Global winds drag on the water’s surface, causing it to move and build up in the direction that the wind is blowing. And just as the Coriolis effect deflects winds to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, it also results in the deflection of major surface ocean currents to the right in the Northern Hemisphere (in a clockwise spiral) and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere (in a counter-clockwise spiral). These major spirals of ocean-circling currents are called “gyres” and occur north and south of the equator. They do not occur at the equator, where the Coriolis effect is not present (Ross, 1995).

3. Filtration — Both conventional and advanced filtration methods are commonly used to remove microplastics. Some processes typically employed include

4. Sand Filtration: It relies on the physical trapping of microplastics as water passes through layers of sand or other porous materials. The sand acts as a filter, capturing particles based on size and density.

5. Activated Carbon Filtration: These filters can effectively adsorb organic compounds, including microplastics, from water. The porous structure of activated carbon provides a large surface area for adsorption, trapping microplastics as water flows through the filter.

6. Granular Filtration: This involves the use of granular materials such as activated carbon, sand, or anthracite coal as filter media. These materials can physically trap and adsorb microplastics and other pollutants.

7. how are micro plastics broken down?

7.1. Microorganisms of the plastisphere may play key roles in degradation of plastic in the oceans. Up to now, many bacterial species, especially Bacillus and Pseudomonas as well as some polyethylene degrading biocatalysts, have been shown to be capable of degrading microplastics.

8. The oyster mushroom is capable of decomposing plastic while still creating an edible mushroom.

8.1. Pleurotus ostreatus and Pleurotus pulmonarius — both types of oyster mushrooms — were found capable of degrading PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) plastic over 30 to 60 days.

9. coral sponges

9.1. Features

9.2. In tests, the researchers show that when a specially prepared plastic-filled solution is pushed through one of their sponges, the sponge can remove both microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics from the liquid. These particles typically become trapped in the sponge’s many

10. very adaptable and can survive in differt enviroments

11. easily famable coral sponge can be cut up and each piece will regenerage a new coral

12. When Yale University students found Pestalotiopsis in the rainforests of Ecuador in 2011, they discovered the first fungus that not only has a voracious appetite for plastic but can thrive in oxygen-starved environments like landfills.

12.1. Austrian designer Katharina Unger teamed up with scientists from Holland’s Utrecht University to develop the Fungi Mutarium, which uses pods of agar gelatine that nourish the fungus with sugars and starch until UV-treated plastic is stuffed into the middle. It takes a few months for the fungus to fully digest the plastic, leaving a puffy, mushroom-like cup with a sweet taste and a liquorice smell. Scientists foresee households owning a smaller-scale version to recycle their plastic waste and community recycling centres with larger systems.

13. extremely small pieces of plastic debris in the environment resulting from the disposal and breakdown of consumer products and industrial waste.

13.1. When talking about microplastics, it is helpful to differentiate between primary and secondary microplastics. Primary microplastics, such as nurdles and cosmetic microbeads , are produced in that size. Secondary microplastics come from the degradation of larger objects. Two major sources of secondary microplastic from/on land are vehicle tires and synthetic clothing.

13.1.1. Microplastics are much more difficult to clean up, and because of their small size, their bioavailability increases, meaning they can potentially impact more species than larger objects. The Ocean Cleanup removes plastic objects from the ocean while they are still at a larger ‘macroplastic’ size, to prevent these objects from breaking into smaller pieces and eventually forming microplastics.

14. There are five gyres in our oceans. The most polluted – and best-studied – is the infamous Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located in the North Pacific Ocean, between Hawaii and California.

14.1. If we take a PET bottle as an example; it is likely to sink as it fills up with water, but the cap, which is made of different type of plastic (HDPE), will stay afloat for much longer. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) products are most likely to travel long distances.

15. porus

16. While sponges, like corals, are immobile aquatic invertebrates, they are otherwise completely different organisms with distinct anatomy, feeding methods, and reproductive processes. The main differences are: Corals are complex, many-celled organisms.

17. Ecologists have found that microplastics often make their way into drinking water as well as foods like salt, honey, and sugar; some research suggests that humans are consuming more than 100,000 microplastics particles a year. However, there are many unanswered questions about the impacts of microplastics on humans and how the human body responds to the microplastics that we eat, drink, or inhale.

17.1. Anastas points out that we do know that inhaling very fine particles of any type of materials can also cause respiratory irritation that could lead to more serious cardiovascular problems, but some of the long-term, hidden health concerns are not yet known. “Plastics are made simply by connecting small chemicals together in chains until they become big chemicals that can be used as materials, and these are called polymers,” Anastas explains. “In addition to most man-made materials, polymers are the foundation of many things in nature. Every tree is a polymer. Your skin is a polymer. Every food you eat is a polymer.”

18. where does plastic pollution go?

19. “Microplastics are also a concern particularly in the ocean because they are so easily ingested by living things,” Anastas says. “When a fish or invertebrate absorbs these microplastics by eating them, they can experience health problems such as a severe interference to or an abrasion with their digestive tracts, which can be fatal.” Further, other pollutants from the water tend to collect on the surface of these microplastics; when animals ingest the plastic, they are also ingesting those toxic chemicals. These substances begin to accumulate in their body and slowly make their way up the food chain.

19.1. Microplastics have significant environmental impacts, most studied in marine environments. Once released or broken away from their original plastic product, microplastics can travel through waterways and end up in the ecosystems that serve as homes to a range of marine life, including algae, zooplankton, fish, crabs, sea turtles, and birds. Shemitz points out that there are many cases of entanglement, where marine life becomes trapped in pieces of plastic like old fishing line and are strangled to death.

20. Nearly half of the plastic sinks directly because of its low buoyancy. Of the other half which floats, our research shows most of it doesn’t go far out in the ocean — about 80% of floating plastic will beach on a coastline within a month of leaking into the ocean. Some objects may be washed out to sea again, but coastlines are the final resting place for most floating ocean plastic. This can have serious consequences for the coastal environment and the fishing and tourism industries, as well as high cleanup costs for coastal communities.

21. Microplastics can act as both sources and sinks of organic contaminants. Multiple toxic organic contaminants can be present in plastics that are released by weathering and degradation in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Conversely, microplastics can adsorb and concentrate organic contaminants on their surfaces while dispersed in soil and aqueous media, serving as a sink. These bound contaminants can then be transported within and across ecosystems

21.1. Impacts on terrestrial plants The potential impacts of microplastics on terrestrial plants are not well understood, and related research findings are currently insufficient (Wang et al., 2020). In general, microplastics in soil can induce changes in properties such as moisture, density, structure, and nutrient content, which may in turn alter plant root characteristics, growth, and nutrient uptake (de Souza Machado et al., 2019; Qi et al., 2018; Rillig et al., 2019). Studies have demonstrated that microplastics impact wheat

22. Threats of microplastic?

23. Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long which can be harmful to our ocean and aquatic life.

24. what are microplastics?

25. Biological Filtration: Here, living organisms such as bacteria, algae, or biofilms degrade or metabolize microplastics in water. While still in the early stages of development, biological filtration shows promise as a sustainable and environmentally friendly method for removing microplastics from water and wastewater.