How Plastic Pollutants Travel Through The Environment, And What The Implications May Be

In this episode, we have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Janice Brahney, an accomplished environmental researcher. Dr. Brahney is an assistant professor at Utah State University’s Watershed Sciences department. She joins us today to discuss her work with watersheds, integrated biological systems, and the issue of microplastics.

Dr. Brahney has always been fascinated by freshwater ecology, and this interest expanded into researching the impact air quality has on water quality. Through this work, she has developed three major themes in her research: understanding what is being transported through the atmosphere to remote ecosystems, understanding how the recession of glaciers is affecting freshwater systems, and the cause, effect, and mitigation of water quality impairment.

Click play to learn more about:

How plastics move through the atmosphere, and why plastic deposition rates have increased in remote areas.
Applications of geochemistry to aquatic ecology.
Evidence that shows how microplastics can travel thousands of miles.
Why agricultural soils can have a higher concentration of plastics than natural soils.

Humans have significantly appropriated the natural landscape, and Dr. Brahney is committed to finding out what the impacts and solutions to this may be…

To connect with Dr. Brahney’s research for yourself, https://janicebrahney.weebly.com/