Plastic pollution is one of the fastest-growing environmental threats. Microplastics and nanoplastics are everywhere: in our drinking water, the air we breathe and even our brains.

Beizhan Yan, an environmental geochemist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which is part of the Columbia Climate School, has come up with new methods to detect and analyze these particles to better understand their impact on human and environmental health. He is also working on ways to remove microplastic and nanoplastic waste from laundry wastewater.

“Laundry generates huge amounts of microfibers that can end up in the ocean and in rivers,” says Yan. “We’re developing new techniques to filter out these particles and remove the fibers before they get into our sewage systems.”

Yan is collaborating with a number of scientists across Columbia, including Wei Min from the Department of Chemistry and Lamont colleague Joaquim Goes.

Learn more about Yan’s work on nanoplastics here:
Bottled Water Can Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Previously Uncounted Tiny Plastic Bits, Study Finds

This video is part of the ongoing Science for the Planet explainer series about how Columbia Climate School scientists and scholars are trying to understand the effects of climate change and helping to contribute solutions.