Student Research Reports

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In our project, we investigated microplastics in the Kupa River. We asked our research questions: Will we find microplastics in the Kupa River during the autumn period? Will the number of microplastic particles in the tested water samples from the Kupa River differ in the center of the city of Karlovac and in the center of the city of Ozalj? What types of microplastic particles will we find in the tested samples in the Kupa River? We took water samples from the Kupa River once a month at both locations. Microscopy results showed that all tested samples contained microplastics. To determine whether there are significant differences in the number of microplastics at sampling sites in Karlovac and Ozalj, we used statistical tests that showed no significant differences in the number of microplastic particles with respect to the mean values of microplastics in the center of Karlovac and the center of Ozalj. We classified microplastic particles into three groups: cellulose fibers, synthetic fibers, and plastic particles. Our results show that, out of the total number of microplastics, the most represented are fibers, of which the most is cellulose fibers (97.22%), followed by synthetic fibers (2.49%). There was a small number of plastic particles in the tested samples.