Microplastics and Environmental Health research group at UQ

The microplastics research team at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS), University of Queensland, aims to better understand how plastics are released into the Australian natural and built environment, how they impact the environment and human health. Using state-of-the-art techniques, their research is focused on identifying how plastic leaks into the environment. The team have published on the presence of plastics in seafood, biosolids released to agricultural land and emissions from residential clothes dryers, the hidden plastic micro-litter on the streets of Brisbane and the tyre wear particles that wash into the city’s creeks when it storms. Incorporating the Minderoo Centre– Plastics and Human health, their work investigates both historic and contemporary emissions, seeking to establish the key sources of plastics into the environment to inform policies aimed at minimising future releases.