New York, NY, August 19, 2024 - In a New York Sea Grant-funded project, researchers from PolyGone aim to pioneer efforts to advance and pilot new aquatic filtration technology designed to monitor and sequester aquatic microplastics from riverine environments. Specifically, the investigators aim to fulfill the National Sea Grant Office priority to investigate and prevent the adverse effects of marine debris through the investigation and development of riverine infrastructure for the monitoring and sequestration of potentially harmful aquatic microplastic debris from a variety of effluents and polluted tributaries within the Hudson River Watershed.

“Our team has been working tirelessly on our microplastic filtration research, and we truly believe that this award will be a game-changer for us,” said Nathaniel Banks, co-founder of PolyGone Systems. “Finally, we can take our technology out of the lab and into the real world, where we can validate it at full scale in the field. We hope this will be the key pivot point that will allow us to turn our experimental research into something that can actually make a positive impact on the world. We are so excited to have the opportunity to really make a difference in remediating microplastic pollution.”

In this video, PolyGone conducted educational interviews with PolyGone's Nathaniel Banks, Director of CURB Ryan Palmer, and CURB Research Intern Mireia Rosenblum-Martín. Additionally, PolyGone provides a community sampling program at the Center for the Urban River at Baczek (CURB).

Acknowledgements: Center for the Urban River at Baczek (CURB), New York Sea Grant, National Sea Grant College Program. 

This project was initially detailed in "NY Sea Grant Awarded $5.2+M in Federal Funding to Address Marine Debris", an NYSG press release from March 2023.

More About PolyGone at polygonesystems.com/communitysampling.

Additional Project Background  ...

Microplastics have only been recently considered as an emerging aquatic pollutant, yet they have already been identified to contaminate almost all terrestrial and aquatic environments. Recent sampling efforts have shown microplastics to be present in approximately 80% of drinking water sources sampled across 14 countries. Furthermore, microplastics have also been shown to persist within human bodily systems once ingested, having been identified in both human blood and breast milk. 

With many plastics containing potentially toxic and carcinogenic additives, the extent of global microplastic contamination into our aquatic environments and diets is rapidly becoming a growing public concern.

While incredibly pervasive, studies have also revealed riverine systems to be a key transportation vector for microplastics, both into broader aquatic environments like the ocean, and into drinking water sources. This is because microplastics are often emitted into riverine systems through stormwater surges, urban runoff, and wastewater treatment effluents. However, despite being aware of the role of rivers and effluents in the transportation and concentration of microplastics, there is little to no existing infrastructure currently in place to sequester aquatic microplastic pollutants.


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.