Syd Kotar

Previous studies have evaluated method performance for quantifying and characterizing microplastics in clean water, but little is known about the efficacy of procedures used to extract microplastics from complex matrices. Here we provided 15 laboratories with samples representing four matrices (i.e., drinking water, fish tissue, sediment, and surfa...

Microplastics (MP) are distributed throughout ecosystems and settle into sediments where they may threaten benthic communities; however, methods for quantifying MP in sediments have not been standardized. This study compares two methods for analyzing MP in sediments, including extraction and identification, and provides recommendations for improvem...

Microscopy is often the first step in microplastic analysis and is generally followed by spectroscopy to confirm material type. The value of microscopy lies in its ability to provide count, size, color, and morphological information to inform toxicity and source apportionment. To assess the accuracy and precision of microscopy, we conducted a metho...

Throughout the past decade, many studies have reported adverse effects in biota following microplastic exposure. Yet, the field is still emerging as the current understanding of microplastic toxicity is limited. At the same time, recent legislative mandates have required environmental regulators to devise strategies to mitigate microplastic polluti...

California Senate Bill 1422 requires the development of State-approved standardized methods for quantifying and characterizing microplastics in drinking water. Accordingly, we led an interlaboratory microplastic method evaluation study, with 22 participating laboratories from six countries, to evaluate the performance of widely used methods: sample...