{"id":108190,"date":"2025-09-02T02:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108190\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T02:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T02:33:09","slug":"alarming-levels-of-microparticle-pollution-in-itchen-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108190\/","title":{"rendered":"Alarming levels of microparticle pollution in Itchen River"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  The study by Upper Itchen Restoration Community Interest Company and the University of Brighton found plastic and fibreglass particles in the river&#8217;s headwaters.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Citizen scientists and researchers detected microfibre and microparticle pollution at all sampled sites in spring 2025.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Dr Corina Ciocan, principal lecturer at the university, said: &#8220;Chalk streams like the Itchen are unique and often compared to rainforests for their biodiversity.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;Finding microfibres and even fibreglass fragments at every site we sampled is concerning, but it also gives us the evidence we need to act.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;The next step is to identify the sources of this pollution and work with local partners to reduce it and mitigate the impacts.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Ian Diver, a director of the UIR CIC, said: &#8220;These early results show that microparticle pollution is an issue we cannot ignore.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;There is currently no data on particle pollution in the Upper Itchen.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;This project changes that.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The study by Upper Itchen Restoration Community Interest Company and the University of Brighton found plastic and fibreglass&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108191,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-108190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}