Plastic pollution is one of the fastest growing environmental threats. Micro and nanoplastics are everywhere: in our drinking water, the air we breathe, and even the brain.
Beizhan Yan, an environmental geochemist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is part of the Columbia Climate School, who has proposed new ways to detect and analyze these particles to better understand their impact on human and environmental health. He is also studying ways to remove micro and nanoplastic waste from laundry wastewater.
“Laundry produces a lot of microfibers that could end up in the oceans and rivers,” Yan said. “We are developing new technologies to filter these particles and remove the fibers before entering our sewage system.”
Yan is working with many scientists in Colombia, including Wei Min, a Wei Min, and Lamont colleague Joaquim Go in the Department of Chemistry.
Learn more about Yan’s work on nanoplastics here:
Research has found that bottled water can contain hundreds of thousands of tiny pieces of plastic that have not been established before.
The video is part of an ongoing science series on the Earth Interpreter series about how scientists and scholars at Columbia’s Climate School try to understand the impacts of climate change and help contribute to solutions.
