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Investigation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyamide (PA) microplastic degradation in situ in stormwater pond sediments
| Description: | Microplastic accumulation in the environment, especially in bodies of water and sediment is a well known concern. Stormwater ponds act as microplastic sinks and draw pollutants from urban and industrial wastewater before it enters oceans or lakes. This results in high levels of microplastics remaining in stormwater pond sediment. The degradation potential of two vastly produced polymers, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyamide (PA) in sediment was determined over the course of 14 months. Pore water chemistry data was collected concurrently with measuring plastic mass loss. High levels of pollutants, such as fluoride, chloride and sulphate were found. Both polymers increased in mass for the first 6 months, due to water absorption. At 14 months, PET had degraded 0.22% and PA had a net positive mass but had decreased water absorption. The obtained results highlight the lack of degradation of plastics in stormwater pond sediment and suggest lifespans are longer than estimated. |
| Authors: | Griffiths, Erin; University of Waterloo;  0009-0002-5435-4392Slowinski, Stephanie; University of Waterloo; 0000-0001-5090-441XRezanezhad, Fereidoun; University of Waterloo; 0000-0002-9608-8005Van Cappellen, Philippe; University of Waterloo; 0000-0001-5476-0820 |
| Keywords: | Polyamide PET Polyethylene terephthalate Stormwater Pond microplastic degradation microplastics |
| Field of Research: | Earth and related environmental sciences > Other earth and related environmental sciences > Earth system sciences
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| Publication Date: | 2025-03-21 |
| Publisher: | Federated Research Data Repository / dépôt fédéré de données de recherche |
| Funder: | Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council; Microplastics Fingerprinting at the watershed scale: from sources to receivers; ALLRP 558435-20 Canada First Research Excellence Fund; Global Water Futures |
| URI: | https://doi.org/10.20383/103.0926 |
| Related Identifiers: |
This dataset is a supplement to
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| Geographic Coverage: | Place Name University of Waterloo City Waterloo Province / Province / Territory Ontario Territory Country Canada |
| Geographic Point: | Latitude 43.47591 Longitude -80.4491 |
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Citation
Griffiths, E., Slowinski, S., Rezanezhad, F., Van Cappellen, P. (2025). Investigation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyamide (PA) microplastic degradation in situ in stormwater pond sediments. Federated Research Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.20383/103.0926
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