Plastic Pollution Plagues Raritan and Passaic Rivers
Rutgers University-New BrunswickGenerations of Rutgers students and alumni have sung lovingly about the “Banks of the Old Raritan,” but the 90-mile-long waterway is awash in microplastic pollutants, a problem that plagues many freshwaters in New Jersey. In a recent study, researchers from Rutgers University–New Brunswick and other institutions found high levels of tiny pieces of plastic – often fragments from bigger items – in the Raritan and Passaic rivers. They later identified more than 300 organic chemical compounds that appeared to be associated with microplastic particles in the two rivers.