ISO/TC 61/SC 14/WG 4 - Characterization of plastics leaked into the environment (including microplastics) and quality control criteria of respective methods

This document describes the principles to be followed in the analysis of microplastics in various environmental matrices. This includes the unique particle size classification of plastics, the use of certain apparatus with regard to sampling, sample preparation, and the determination of representative sample quantities. The purpose of this document is to specify minimum requirements until specific standards for the different case situations are available. This is important to ensure that the development of the specific standards is done on a consistent basis to ensure that comparison or correlation of results is possible. This document does not include requirements for monitoring actions.

This document summarizes current scientific literature on the occurrence of macroplastics and microplastics, in the environment and biota. It gives an overview of testing methods, including sampling from various environmental matrix, sample preparation and analysis. Further, chemical and physical testing methods for the identification and quantification of plastics are described. This document gives recommendations for three steps necessary for the standardization of methods towards harmonized procedures for sampling, sample preparation and analysis. This document does not apply indoor and health related aspects. NOTE The collection of plastics or microplastics in the environment by citizen social monitoring projects is not in the scope of this document. Although such projects can help sensitize the society to environmental problems and can even reduce the entry and presence of plastics in the environment, this monitoring concept is not considered suitable for a robustly representative and scientific analysis of microplastics in the environment via standardization.