- “Every piece of plastic ever made is still here.”
That’s how Northern Illinois University Assistant Professor Megan Brown succinctly summarizes a surging crisis for the health of the planet and everything living on it, including people. Based in NIU’s Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Brown and her colleagues are leading the charge toward change.
“We always say microplastics, but ‘macro’ questions,” said Chit Wityi Oo, a postdoctoral fellow working alongside Brown, Professor Melissa Lenczewski, and an NIU crew of both undergraduate and graduate students engaged in research close to home and around the world.
What are microplastics?
These tiny plastic waste particles are sometimes microscopic, slimmer than the width of a hair. They are present – and prevalent – in oceans and freshwater ecosystems.
“We’re finding a lot of these really small, round particles, which are dangerous for the environment and our health, as they can easily be digested and enter our bloodstream,” Lenczewski said. “This is analogous to what we see with rocks weathering away and becoming more spherical.”
Just over a year ago, NIU acquired a rare piece of equipment that fits on a tabletop but is capable of holding a massive library of information to help identify and catalog every bit of microplastic.
The Agilent 8700 Laser Direct Infrared (LDIR) Chemical Imaging System, made possible by a $415,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, uses magnifying cameras and infrared light to scan, count and classify teeming specks of plastic in samples from water, air or soil.
This summer, the research team went abroad to test freshwater sources for microplastics, including the cenotes, or sinkholes, on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, as well as groundwater from the Southeast Asian countries of Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia.
In Cambodia, they found data on two commonly encountered microplastic contributors — textiles and tires — by collecting water near busy roads and fast-fashion garment factories.
While synthetic fabrics like nylon are a known source of microplastics, tires have more recently risen in prominence as a particularly problematic pollutant. Within the last half-decade, scientists have uncovered some deadly consequences of about 50 years of manufacturing practices.
A mix of natural rubber and plastic, modern tires also contain an organic chemical added to help them last longer, 6PPD. A toxic byproduct, 6PPD-quinone, forms through exposure to oxygen. As tires wear down, they coat the roads in a fine dust, which the rain washes into waterways.
Publication of the department’s findings is imminent, and the researchers are working with collaborators near and far on a variety of projects using NIU’s LDIR technology.
Beyond government and university research partnerships across international borders, NIU is supporting a United States Geological Survey project analyzing regional microplastics.
“We’re thinking locally, but also working globally, on this important and innovative work at NIU,” Lenczewski said. “We’re starting to really build up our research and make the study of microplastics a highlight for the university.”