I know what you’re thinking. A project titled “An Investigation of Microplastics Fate and Contaminant Transport in Storm Runoff, The Nexus of Environmental Engineering and Material Sciences,” doesn’t sound like it would enrapture you at a dinner party.
But this research, spearheaded by civil engineering professor Maryam Salehi, has caught the attention of the National Science Foundation (NSF) — which has given the U of M faculty member a more than $453,000 CAREER Award for her work.
The grant bolsters the school’s case to attain, and retain, R1 status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, while also allowing Salehi to continue her research.
“I am so excited and honored to receive this NSF CAREER Award to study the microplastics’ fate and contaminant transport behavior in stormwater runoff,” she said in a press release.
Plastic, and microplastics, have become significant pollutants in ecosystems. According to a 2019 National Geographic article, about 8 million tons of plastic waste enters the oceans annually — the equivalent of setting five garbage bags full of trash on every foot of coastline around the world — while the harm caused by microplastics is more insidious.
Microplastics are the small particles that come from consumer plastic, and they’re transported through water, air, or food webs, following ingestion and uptake by animals and other organisms. Riddled throughout the world, they can take hundreds of years to compose, according to the release, and because they can absorb toxic pollutants, they’ll spread quickly, and far.
An October study published in the journal Environmental Pollution has estimated there are between 12.5 and 125 trillion particles of microplastics in oceans, while an August National Geographic story said they’ve been found in drinking water, salt, and other foods. So far, a harm to humans hasn’t been demonstrated, though the threats to wildlife are significant.
While research on microplastics is widespread, how it’s released into surface waters through urban storm runoff is still poorly understood. And this is where Salehi’s research comes in.
“The goal of this NSF CAREER project is to utilize interdisciplinary research of material science and environmental engineering to close the critical knowledge gap on the environmental degradation of microplastics and how they facilitate the transport of heavy metals in urban stormwater,” she said. “Our research results will inform water managers, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders in Tennessee on the presence of microplastics in stormwater, and ways to combat the problem by developing effective stormwater management strategies."
