Development of the first global standard for airborne microplastic monitoring.

微塑料（MPs）几乎存在于所有环境中：土壤、生物、水和空气。在过去的五年里，我们进行了少量的调查，时间跨度很长（有些长达一年），范围很广。一个常见的发现是，MP的数量和类型在不同的环境中差异很大。现在人们对下院议员可能对公众健康和其他有机体健康产生的影响感到关切。MPs的大小范围在1微米到5毫米之间，大小从一个小细菌到最多一颗芝麻，可吸入，在食物链/饮食中很常见。它们有不同的形状和聚合物类型，这取决于塑料的来源。聚酯或聚丙烯，这是常见的纺织品或包装。最近，在人的肺部、血液和肠道中发现了它们，问题是它们是否会导致或加剧肺部或肠道疾病，如慢性咳嗽或肠易激病。在海洋生物中，它们也与生长和炎症类型的影响有关。目前的空气质量措施和监测完全忽视了这种污染物类型，这可能成为一个公共卫生问题。目前对常规空气监测中颗粒和气体类型的测量也不能完全解释许多城市中特定咳嗽和炎症类型疾病发病率高的原因。本研究首先旨在建立一种测量空气中MPs的方法，这将代表一种新的空气质量测量方法。我们建议的方法是“滑动流”，即目前世界范围内可用的花粉监测方法，使那些无法获得专业和昂贵设备的人可以使用它。然而，所提出的方法确实包含了一些可靠的因素，这些因素是为了确保进行空气质量测量的机构可以使用所产生的数据。这项工作的第二个方面是开发一种自动识别和计数技术方法，以便将来可以使用低成本、非专业设备和专业知识完成监测。理想情况下，该方法将可在世界各地可靠和可重复使用。这将通过对空气中发现的MPs的现有可用数据集（来自我们过去三年的研究）的操作，以及与分布在四大洲使用不同花粉采样方法的同事的试验相结合来实现。我们将使用的一种新方法是制作一组MP“参考条”，可以张贴给用户，并在拍摄图像进行分析时用作内部校准。已经建立的花粉监测和试图为MPs建立类似的东西之间有相似之处，我们可以利用。花粉的形状和大小（从5-100多微米）到微米不等。它们是健康影响的触发因素，因此受到常规和强有力的监测，以便在国际上共享和比较数据集，并向公众传播。mp也可以使用相同的参数。第二个方面，自动识别和计数将代表花粉和MP监测向前迈出了重要一步，这可能会带来更广泛的好处。我们进行的试验将与目前的MP抽样实践同时进行，以增加进一步的交叉比较，但也将任何新方法锚定在目前在该领域工作的更广泛的研究科学家社区中被认为是可接受的。

Microplastics (MPs) have been found in virtually all environments: soil, living things, water and air. The past five years have included a small number of investigations over long time scales (up to a year for some) and across wide ranging locations. One common finding is that MP numbers and types vary greatly in different environments. There is now concern regarding the possible impacts of MPs in terms of public and other organism health. MPs are of the size range range of 1 micron to 5 mm, which ranges from the size of a small bacterium to a sesame seed at most, inhalable, and common in food chains/diet. They come in different shapes and polymer types, depending on the plastics that are derived from eg. polyester or polypropylene, which are common in textiles or packaging. Recently, they have been identified inside people's lungs, blood and bowels, and questions arise as to whether they cause or exacerbate lung or bowel conditions like chronic cough or irritable bowel disease. In marine organisms they are also associated with growth and inflammation type impacts. Current air quality measures and monitoring completely overlook this contaminant type, which is likely to become a public health issue. Current measurements of the types of particles and gases in routine air monitoring also fail to completely explain high levels of specific cough and inflammation type disease incidences in many cities. This study firstly aims to establish a means to measure MPs in the air, which would represent a new air quality measure methodology. The approach we suggest 'slip streams' the current pollen monitoring methods available worldwide, making it accessible for those who do not have access to specialist and expensive equipment. The method proposed does however have certain robust elements included and these are to ensure that the agencies who conduct air quality measurements can use the data produced.The second aspect of this work is to develop an automated identification and counting technology approach so that the monitoring can be completed in future using low cost, non-specialist equipment and expertise. Ideally, the method will be available for reliable and reproducible use around the world. This will be achieved by a combination of manipulation of existing available datasets on MPs found in the air (from our past three years of studies), and trials with colleagues located across four continents who work with different pollen sampling approaches. One novel approach we will use will be to make a set of MP 'reference strips' that can be posted to users and used an as internal calibration when taking images for analysis. There are parallels between established pollen monitoring and trying to set up something similar for MPs, that we can exploit. Pollen come in a comparable range of shapes and sizes (ranging from 5-100+ microns) to MPs. They are a trigger for health impacts and, as such, are routinely and robustly monitored such that datasets can be shared and compared internationally as well as communicated to the public. The same parameters can apply for MPs. The second aspect, the auto-identification and counting would represent a significant step forward for both pollen and MP monitoring, that could see wider benefits still. The trials we conduct will run in parallel with the current practice for MP sampling, to add further cross comparison but also to anchor any new approach to what is currently deemed as acceptable in the wider community of research scientists working in this area.