News

The Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative (CSMI) is a collaborative program between environmental organizations from Canada and the United States that focuses on monitoring and assessing conditions in the five Laurentian Great Lakes. For 2024, the spotlight was on Lake Erie, where a team of scientists embarked on a research cruise in July. This cruise, hosted by the Great Lakes Center at SUNY Buffalo State, aimed to explore changes in the lake's sediment bio-geochemical conditions. The primary focus involved conducting a lake-wide benthos survey as part of the U.S. Great Lakes Biology Monitoring Program, led by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Microplastics (MPs), tiny plastic particles less than 5 mm in diameter, pose a growing threat to both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems due to their toxicity and resistance to degradation. In urban areas, stormwater runoff is a major conduit for MPs, often channeling them into green infrastructure such as stormwater ponds (SWPs). While existing evidence suggests that SWPs can effectively reduce MP loads from urban runoff, the mechanisms behind their retention and accumulation remain underexplored.

The Microplastics Fingerprinting project is working towards better understanding of microplastic pollution in the natural environment, including the quantities, particle sizes, and composition of plastics found in sediments, soils, and water. This work requires recovering microplastic particles from different types of environmental samples (i.e., matrices). However, there is an overall lack of standardization across the methods people use to do this extraction in a way that ensures results can be compared and quantified across projects. 

From April 23to 29, the world came together in Ottawa for the global plastics treaty negotiations at INC-4 (the 4^th session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee). The University of Waterloo, through the Water Institute, participated as an official observer. This involved sending a delegation to witness the negotiations at a pivotal moment in the collective goal of ending plastic pollution. The delegation consisted of members of the Microplastics Fingerprinting project, Stephanie Slowinski, Nancy Goucher, and Cassandra Sherlock, as well as Elizabeth Prince, Assistant Professor from the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Philippe Van Cappellen, professor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences department and Canada Excellence Research Chair Laureate in Ecohydrology, has been appointed a University Professor by the University of Waterloo. This designation recognizes exceptional scholarly achievement and international pre-eminence, and once appointed, a faculty member retains the designation until retirement. Van Cappellen is the first Earth and Environmental Sciences professor to receive this honour.  

“The relationships between graduate students and their academic supervisors are critical to achieving this goal. Our colleagues who are receiving the Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision have been and continue to be exceptional collaborators with and mentors to our students. We are thrilled to celebrate their vast contributions to the graduate community.”  

As a representative of the Microplastics Fingerprinting project, I had the chance to join world leaders in Kenya this past November at the third negotiation session for the Global Plastics Treaty. Led by the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), the meeting was part of an effort to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution. I was invited to join as part of the Environmental Defence delegation, one of our project partners.