The discharge of certain amounts of industrial microplastic from a production plant into the River Danube is permitted by the Austrian legislation

Short-term exposure with high concentrations of pristine microplastic particles leads to immobilisation of Daphnia magna

“…Mechanical abrasion or UV-radiation of bigger synthetic polymer products that have been emitted into the environment also lead to smaller plastic fragments ("secondary microplastics"; Cole et al, 2011). In addition, plastic production sites located close to river systems may accidently release pristine plastic material into freshwaters (Mato et al, 2001;Lechner and Ramler, 2015). Since plastic products are produced to be long-lasting it is not surprising that plastic debris including microplastics can be transported by air and water and are thus detected in the environment ubiquitously, even in remote regions (e.g.…”

Sources and sinks of microplastics in Canadian Lake Ontario nearshore, tributary and beach sediments

“…The shaving-like particles identified in our samples could potentially be the waste flash particles resulting from this process. A study by Lechner and Ramler (2015) identified an industrial point source of microplastics along the Danube River in Austria. According to their investigation, the allowable plastic loads in wastewater of the manufacturing plant was 30 mg l -1 , which translates O.…”

“…Whereas buoyant materials are transported on surface waters (Gasperi et al, 2014), non-buoyant materials are transported along the tributary bed (Moore et al, 2011;Morritt et al, 2014). Microplastic debris loads can be introduced into tributaries via non-point spill and litter sources as well as point sources such as effluent pipes (Lechner & Ramler 2015), storm water drainage outlets (Armitage & Rooseboom 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Ballent, Anika Manuscript page 3 2000) and possibly wastewater treatment plants, particularly during combined sewage overflow and bypass events during heavy precipitation conditions (MacDonald and Podolsky, 2009). Rech et al (2014) and Corcoran et al (2015) showed that macroplastic and microplastic debris loads carried by rivers are also deposited along river banks, suggesting that rivers are both depositional and erosional zones for anthropogenic debris.…”

Microplastics in the gastrointestinal tracts of fish and the water from an urban prairie creek

“…Plastics in freshwaters were originally observed in the Laurentian Great Lakes (Eriksen et al 2013); numerous studies since have detected microplastics in other freshwater systems. For example, the Global Water Research Coalition 2015 (GWRC 2016) summarized the extent of microplastic freshwater pollution and showed that European and North American rivers contain as many as 387 particles·m −3 (McCormick et al 2014;Lechner and Ramler 2015).…”