Take a pinch of laundry lint and add this to 100mL of water. Stir this vigorously to separate the fibres into a suspension.

Place the funnel into the glass. Add the filter paper to the funnel and pour the suspension through the filter paper.

Option 1 – Investigate the filter paper.

Allow the filter paper to dry. Once the filter paper has dried, place the paper under the digital microscope (scrape this onto a glass slide for a standard microscope).

Can you count how many distinct coloured lint fibres there are?

Additionally, how many of these fibres will form microplastics?

• Synthetic Fibres (Polyester, Nylon, Acrylic)
  These usually look like fishing lines. They are often uniform in thickness, very smooth, long, and may be shiny under a light source. These are the microplastics.
• Natural Fibres (Cotton, Wool)
  These tend to look rougher. Cotton often looks like a twisted ribbon or has frayed edges. Wool may look scaly (like human hair).

Option 2 – Investigate the suspension

The smallest microplastics will have passed through your filter paper and into the water. Use the pipette or eyedropper to sample towards the bottom of the water and place this on a petri dish or glass slide and then place under a microscope.

You may have trouble viewing this under low magnification; increase the magnification and change the amount of light coming through the petri dish or glass slide to see the tiny microplastics that are in the water.