![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2022\/08\/HOMEs3.png\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHomes under the Microscope <\/strong><\/a>is one such citizen science project in which participants measured the concentration of airborne microfibre pollution in their homes.\u00a0 Airborne microfibres are produced when we use the textiles in our homes, they are just tiny fragments of material that have broken off from e.g. carpets, curtains or clothes and passed in the air around us.\u00a0 Now that many of the textiles in our homes contain plastic, many of the microfibres in our homes are also microplastics, but very little is known either about the amount of microfibres or what they are made of. \u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n The pilot phase of the project recently ran in Bristol; participants were each given 8 sample collection dishes that they placed in 4 rooms in their houses (2 dishes per room) for two weeks.\u00a0 These dishes are just petri dishes with a sticky section at the bottom of the dish, any microfibres that land on the sticky section stay attached, so after two weeks we can count the number of fibres deposited.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n One of the biggest findings in the study is that the concentration of microfibres varies a lot between rooms – bedrooms had the highest number of microfibres, closely followed by bathrooms.\u00a0 Whereas kitchens and hallways had much lower numbers. \u00a0 Samples collected were analysed in a laboratory to understand what the fibres were made of, from the samples tested so far 41% were found to be microplastic (most commonly polyester) and 55% were natural (most commonly cellulose).\u00a0 One of the purposes of the pilot was to shape the design of the main project, feedback from the pilot showed that the very simple microfibre collection method worked (which was a relief!) and that two weeks was plenty of time to collect a range of microfibre concentrations. Finally the participants took the time to give extensive feedback on the instructions and methodology, which allowed us to refine them and to make them clearer so more people can participate in the next phase.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe all really enjoyed it, and it has taught us more about our home!\u201d <\/em><\/p>\npilot participant<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Text by: Kirsty Pringle<\/a>, HOMEs project\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Homes Under the Microscope is a multidisciplinary project that brings scientists, participants and the textile industry together to develop a new way to measure microplastics in the home. It is a collaboration between the\u00a0Science Communication Unit<\/a> and the Air Quality Management Resource Centr<\/a>e at the University of West England<\/a>, the\u00a0University of Leeds<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0University of Edinburgh<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like most people I spend a lot of time in my home; on average we spend 80% of our time in our homes, much more than they spend in any other environment. This makes our homes very important for our health but, despite this importance, relatively little is known about air pollution in the home. … Continue reading “Homes under the microscope: pilot phase”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":15865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[795,16,794,3,4,21],"tags":[26,477,779,799,52,777,776,797,796,114,798,778],"class_list":["post-20250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-of-health-science-and-society","category-research-projects","category-school-of-applied-sciences","category-science-communication","category-science-communication-unit","category-sustainability-the-environment","tag-air-pollution","tag-air-quality-management-resource-centre","tag-airborne","tag-airborne-microfibre-pollution","tag-citizen-science","tag-homes","tag-homes-under-the-microscope","tag-indoor-air-pollution","tag-kirsty-pringle","tag-margarida-sardo","tag-microfibres","tag-microplastics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20250"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20256,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20250\/revisions\/20256"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/05\/Pilot-infographic-results-724x1024.jpg\")
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