Tackling the Big Problem of Tiny Particles

Making microplastic testing commercially available

If not correctly recycled, plastic poses a major threat to our environment. Degrading into tiny particles, microplastics can remain in the environment for over hundreds, if not thousands, of years, infiltrating aquatic and marine ecosystems and contaminating the water we drink. Recognising the major global environmental problem that microplastics present, Eurofins is at the forefront of providing testing solutions to identify the prevalence of microplastics in our environment.

Microplastics are any particles of plastic fragment smaller than 5mm. Polluting our environment every day, microplastics may contain or carry hazardous chemicals that have a negative impact on nature and human health. For this reason, their ingestion through water, or foods such as fish or shellfish, is of particular concern. In 2019, the World Health Organization reviewed the state of evidence on microplastics and published a report assessing the risks to human health.

Eurofins laboratories in Norway have been at the forefront of developing testing methods to identify and quantify microplastics in the environment using pyrolysis-GC/MS. By their very nature, microplastic particles are just that – micro. Microplastic particles can be filtered from clean liquid samples; and for more complicated matrices, a sample treatment step must be performed prior to analysis.. The team has developed methods for the analysis of microplastics in various liquid matrices, wastewater, sediments and soil, fish and dry matter for polymer screening. Rubber components, mostly found in tyre wear particles, can also be analysed using pyrolysis-GC/MS which can provide important information about the pollution in the environment from traffic.

Several methods can be used to identify individual microplastic polymers – the most common being dye imaging and NOAA methodology under FTIR spectroscopy and microscopy technologies. Eurofins SFA Laboratories, based in Wisconsin, was the first laboratory to make these analytical methods commercially available, offering testing across several matrices including marine and drinking water sources and finished bottled water. Additionally, both Eurofins Analytical Services Hungary Kft. and Eurofins Environment Testing Australia offer state-of-the-art spectroscopic analysis for microplastics in a diverse array of products such as infant formula, eye drops, soy sauce, rice, sea salt, shellfish and anything where plastic has been used in the processing and/or packaging.

Eurofins Textile Testing Spain has been one of the first testing laboratories to develop a quantitative detection method to monitor microfibre-­shedding during the washing process of synthetic textiles such as polyester, acrylic, elastane, and nylon. These test methods help customers to better understand the environmental impact of their products, and by identifying which fabrics and fibres are most prone to microfibre release, enables them to proactively reduce microplastic pollution through informed raw material selection and use.  Across the network, Eurofins companies continue to undertake research to better understand the threat that microplastics pose to our environment and their prevalence in our ecosystems.

The science behind