Microbeads in personal care products sold in Pakistan: extraction, quantification, characterization, and buoyancy analysis.

Microbeads used in personal care products (PCPs) as an exfoliating agent or as a sorbent phase for delivering active ingredients are the most common sources of microplastics. The release of these plastic microbeads into aquatic environments has raised significant concerns due to their direct availability for ingestion by organisms upon entering the recipient waters. In this study, twelve personal care products (PCPs; 5 face washes and 7 scrubs) were analyzed for microbead content, size, polymer type, and buoyant behavior. Among the face washes, the highest microbead content (i.e., 11 ± 1.2 mg/g) was found in Neutrogena (NS), while the lowest was found in Nivea (NI) with 0.33 ± 0 mg/g. In case of scrubs, Cool and Cool (CL) contained a higher concentration of microbeads (i.e., 57.08±14.15 mg/g) and a lower concentration was found in Yong Chin (YC) (i.e., 10.5±1.5 mg/g). The sizes of microbeads ranged from 3.14 ± 0 to 747 ± 313 µm, and most of the isolated microbeads showed negative buoyant behavior in both freshwater and seawater. The FTIR spectra showed that the microbeads were mainly composed of ethyl-vinyl acetate (66.66%), high-density polyethylene (16.66%), polyethylene terephthalate (8.3%), and nitrile (8.3%). The presence of plastic microbeads in PCPs highlights the need to regulate their use as an exfoliating agent and to raise public awareness to prevent the discharge of these persistent and potentially harmful elements into the environment.

Microplastic pollution in the surface water and sediments from Kallar Kahar wetland, Pakistan: occurrence, distribution, and characterization by ATR-FTIR.

This study reports the distribution of microplastics in surface water and sediments collected from Kallar Kahar wetland, Punjab, Pakistan, which is a game reserve and hosts migratory birds during winter season. Microplastics were extracted using density separation and wet oxidation method. The microplastics identification was done under a stereo-microscope, and their polymer compositions were characterized using an attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy. The average abundance of microplastics in water and sediment samples was 88 ± 14.5 items/L and 5720 ± 2580 items/kg, respectively. The dominant shape groups of microplastics in water were fiber (58.7%), irregular fragments (32.4%), and beads (8.7%) with dominant colors as transparent > black > yellow ≈ white > red > green > pink > blue. Similar distribution in sediments was found, i.e., fiber (61.2%), irregular fragments (28.4%), and beads (10.3%) with dominant colors as transparent > pink > white > red ≈ black > blue > brown > green ≈ yellow. The ATR-FTIR spectra of visible microplastics were identified to be polypropylene (PP), high density polyethylene (HDPE), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), low density polyethylene (LDPE), nitrile, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), latex, and polyethylene terephthalate (PETE). In the study area, recreational activities, improper waste disposal, and runoff from catchment areas are the main reasons for the contamination of microplastics in the Lake. The pollution load can be minimized by taking measures such as creating awareness, promotion of ecotourism, and reducing plastic use.

Remotely sensed image interpretation for assessment of land use land cover changes and settlement impact on allocated irrigation water in Multan, Pakistan.

Industrial revolution and rapid population growth are responsible for alteration of land into different settlements. These changes may lead to change in land use (LU) and land cover (LC). The LULC changes have impact on hydrological regimes including streams flow pattern and allocated irrigation water (water allocation through Warabandi system). The present study aimed to identify the LULC changes and settlement impact on allocated water using the unsupervised classification and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of Landsat images for the years of 1990 to 2020 in Multan District. The accuracy assessment and Kappa coefficient were also investigated to evaluate quality of results derived from the classified images. The results show that the reduction in waterbody, spare, and dense vegetation was -7.6, -1.7, and -30.7%, respectively. The settlements, barren, and crop lands have increased to 25.2, 10.1, and 4.6%, respectively, from 1990 to 2020. The values of kappa coefficient (0.84-0.85) showed very good level of classification. In addition, the volume of water loss due to change of LULC from waterbody into settlements, barren land, crop land, spare, and dense vegetation was found approximately 472, 44, 133, 54, and 85 m3, respectively, in last 30 years. This volume of water is not reaching equitably to the farming community because of the LU and LC changes and urban settlements. The results indicated that remotely sensed image interpretation technique may be a useful for reallocation of water among farmers in an equitable and efficient way.