The researchers found both condoms and sanitary napkins in the wastewater, but in particular they found wet wipes, which made up 59 percent of the total mass contribution of plastic. In addition, their results showed that part of the microplastics can also be related to the wet wipes.
 
- We have found massive amounts of wet wipes among other waste in the waste water. And the wet wipes end up in the marine environment, where they slowly break down, as they often contain plastic. Based on our results, an amount of 1.2 tonnes of wet wipes discharged into the marine environment per year can be roughly estimated, says senior researcher at Ecoscience at Aarhus University, Lis Bach, who is the lead author of a scientific article that has just been published in the journal Royal Society of Chemistry.