Plastics break down into increasingly smaller pieces, and with unknown long term effects on the environment and body. Florida Sea Grant, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
BOZEMAN – A mountain
meadow glittering with fresh snow may seem a picture of purity, but for Bekah
Anderson, a Montana State University senior majoring in chemical engineering,
the picture is more complicated.
Working with
dozens of snow samples taken over the past year from Big Sky Resort, Teton Pass
and other Rocky Mountain sites, Anderson uses microscopes and other specialized
laboratory tools in MSU’s Center for Biofilm Engineering to peer into
the world of tiny particles that mix with airborne water that then falls from
the sky as precipitation.
“There’s all
sorts of stuff in there,” including plant pollen and dust, Anderson said, but
of greatest interest to her are fibers of polyester and other pieces of
microplastic.
“All the
pieces I’ve found so far have been small fibers that seem to be from fabrics
like fleece,” Anderson said, noting that many kinds of outdoor clothing are
made of finely spun plastic fibers. “We think that’s because they’re fine
enough to get whisked up into the atmosphere.”
Previously,
scientists have documented the presence of microplastic in streams and other
water bodies, but the MSU study is among the first to examine the man-made
particles directly in precipitation, according to the project’s
leader, Christine Foreman, associate professor in the Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering in MSU’s Norm Asbjornson College
of Engineering.
“It’s been exciting, but also saddening, to find so much microplastic in snow,” Foreman said. The team’s preliminary results are significant because they suggest the synthetic fibers are prevalent throughout the water cycle and not just in certain waterways.
Bekah Anderson, a senior in chemical engineering at Montana State University’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering, is researching the way microplastic fibers are being transported via precipitation.
MSU Photo by Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez
Microplastics
are “an emerging concern,” Foreman said. Not much is known about how they
affect ecosystems, but it’s reasonable to suspect the petrochemical particles
are, for example, being consumed by some aquatic organisms, she said.
Scientists have warned that microplastics have a number of impacts on insects
and fish, including clogging up digestion and disrupting hormones that regulate
body functions.
In the lab,
Anderson passes each sample of melted snow, as well as rain, through a fine
filter that collects any particles. Then she applies a dye that binds to
plastic. A certain kind of light applied under the microscope causes the dye to
fluoresce, making any microplastic stand out. Using another technique called
Raman spectroscopy, which measures how light interacts with a material’s
molecular composition, Anderson can determine what kind of plastic each
particle is made of.
“I’m passionate about it,” said Anderson, who is from Golden, Colorado. “It’s important for us to understand the consequences of our plastic use.”
When she
presented early results from the project last March at the Western Regional
Honors Conference, which brought top students from across the western U.S. to
MSU to present their research, Anderson won the award for the best poster
presentation.
“She’s
incredibly motivated,” Foreman said of Anderson. “You can tell she’s
really excited about this project, and she brings that excitement to the rest
of our research group,” which focuses on studying microbes in glacial
environments.
Anderson,
whose work in Foreman’s lab is funded by MSU’s Undergraduate Scholars
Program, also presented at the 2019 National Conference on Undergraduate
Research in Kennesaw, Georgia. When MSU hosts the event on March 26-28,
more than 4,000 students from around the world are expected to convene on the
Bozeman campus to share their research.
Anderson
said she “definitely” recommends attending NCUR. “I loved being around other
students who were so passionate about their projects.”
“Research
has a strong community,” she said. “It brings people together.”