The role of wet wipes and sanitary towels as a source of white microplastic fibres in the marine environment

Characterization of littered face masks in the southeastern part of Turkey

“…If not properly managed, plastic waste can travel great distances and accumulate in large quantities in terrestrial environments, shorelines, and open oceans (Zbyszewski and Corcoran 2011 ). These plastics undergo physical and biochemical degradation (mechanical erosion, light-induced degradation, and biological degradation) and turn into microplastics that are more difficult to control (Ó Briain et al 2020 ).…”

Balancing the decomposable behavior and wet tensile mechanical property of cellulose-based wet wipe substrates by the aqueous adhesive

“…This renewable material also facilitates its applicability as an environmentally friendly wet wipe substrate for achieving the large-scale commercial production, increasingly investigated both in research and industry [ [77] , [78] , [79] ]. Besides, the ubiquity of microplastic fibers degraded from widely flushed personal care textile products (wet wipes and sanitary towels) were comprised of PP and polystyrene [ 73 ], which confirms that wet wipes (non-cellulose substrate) and sanitary towels flushed down to toilets are an underestimated source of white microplastic fibers in the environment. Therefore, compared with the chemical synthetic fibers-based wet wipe substrate, the biodegradable cellulose-based wet wipe substrate has more long-term environmental benefits in commercial applications.…”

“…With regard to economic benefits, the difference between our cellulose-based wet wipe substrate and other commercially available wet wipes products is the raw materials of wet wipe substrate due to the economic cost of the additives in various wet wipe is basically equivalent. Non-woven textiles mainly comes from the base material of many sanitary products such as the wet wipes and sanitary towels [ 73 ]. A recent study identified the material composition of “baby/wet wipes” as white micro-polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers used in the manufacture of products labelled as flushable and other components such as high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polyethylene/vinyl acetate (PEVA/EVA) [ 74 ].…”

Potential Microplastic Threat: Environmental Assessment of The Face Mask Pollution

“…The samples of these masks, which were made of polypropylene (magni ed x100 to 1000 under SEM), did not appear to be resistant to disintegration, although they had not been in the area for a long period. Studies in the literature on polypropylene wastes have reported that polypropylene is not as durable as polyethylene and that changes such as breakage or deterioration occur in polypropylene (Ó Briain et al 2020). This shows that face masks, which are classi ed as macroplastic, can turn into microplastic dimensions more easily.…”