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Visit to Southampton University to discuss plastics and microplastics reaserch

Neil Auchterlonie travelled to Southampton University on Friday 2nd February, in order to catch up on some of the latest research relating to plastics and microplastics being carried out at the university.  He met with Prof. Malcolm Hudson, and his PhD student Christina Thiele. 

The conversation was broad and covered elements of the current research and possible future research objectives.  Christina has been working on the validation of a method to analyse fishmeal for the presence of plastics and microplastics, but with only limited success at this stage.  The intention is to produce an appropriate methodology within the next 3 months.  This is a precursor to then analysing some field samples for the presence of these materials and getting an idea of the distribution of the different plastics and their sizes in various regions.  There are many unknowns about the subject at the current time, and the meeting confirmed a desire to work together on the topic in the coming months.  This will be useful so that we may have some early notification of any emerging risks, and be better placed to handle these should they occur.