Plastic pollution in rivers, lakes, and oceans is a growing environmental crisis with serious implications for ecosystems, biodiversity, food security, and human health. Every year, millions of tonnes of plastic enter aquatic systems, where they break down into smaller pieces that can persist for decades. These particles do not remain where they enter the water. Instead, they are carried by currents, waves, and turbulence, sometimes traveling long distances before accumulating in coastal zones, river mouths, or the open ocean.
Despite the scale of this challenge, our ability to predict the pathways of plastics in natural waters is limited. Most studies so far have focused on floating plastics or very small particles in idealised turbulence setting. However, these approaches do not capture the complexity of real aquatic environments, where plastics of different shapes, sizes, and densities are influenced by turbulence, current and surface waves. This knowledge gap makes it difficult to model plastic pathways accurately which in turn hampers strategies to mitigate their impact on ecosystems, food safety, and human health..
The InMyWaves project (Inertial effects on settling of microplastics in turbulent wavy flows) set out to address this gap through carefully designed laboratory experiments. The main objectives were to:
1) Identify the particle properties that dominate settling behaviour.
2) Determine how turbulence modifies the settling and dispersion of plastics compared to quiescent flows.
3) Investigate how the combined effects of turbulence and surface waves influence plastic transport.
By answering these questions, the project aimed to provide new knowledge that improves plastic transport models. The long-term goal is to support more reliable predictions of plastic pollution pathways to predict where plastics will accumulate or how quickly they will disperse, helping society to better protect and manage aquatic environments.
