The focus today is not on functional clothing, but on artificial turf pitches. A place where sport drama takes place and people gather to cheer, cry, fight devotedly and bare their hearts. Artificial turf fields are places of encounter, but unfortunately also a place and pathway for microplastics to enter the environment. The benefits of high robustness and low maintenance have led to a rapid increase in the number of pitches, but no one has considered the associated environmental impacts. However, possibilities exist to minimize the entries into the environment, possibly even to reduce them to zero, and are covered in today's blog.

Tire wear particles are communicated as one of the main sources of direct microplastic (Microplastics Type B) entry into the environment. But is this the truth? Fact is: Currently, no standardized analytical method for tire wear particles exists; only rough estimations can be made. The real extent is unknown. This blog discusses the issue of tire wear particles as a major microplastic source and the status quo regarding detection and regulations.

The detection of microplastics is of crucial importance when it comes to assessing the risk potential and the entry routes of microplastics into the environment. A standardized detection method is therefore essential to collect comparable and reliable data on microplastic pollution and to identify hotspots. This blog gives an overview of our current study and the most important results.