Tire wear particles (TWPs) can enter wastewater systems together with a complex mixture of tire-associated chemicals (TACs). The review by Job Oliver Otieno, Thorsten Hüffer, Thilo Hofmann, and Agnieszka Cydzik-Kwiatkowska synthesizes current knowledge on their behavior during wastewater treatment, including partitioning between aqueous and solid phases, transformation processes, and potential effects on treatment processes and microbial communities.
The authors highlight that wastewater treatment systems should not simply be viewed as removal barriers. TWPs and TACs can be retained in sludge, remain in treated effluent, or undergo transformation during treatment, thereby influencing their subsequent environmental pathways. The review also identifies important challenges related to source apportionment, analytical methods, and the limited availability of data from full-scale treatment plants.
Job Oliver Otieno and Agnieszka Cydzik-Kwiatkowska are affiliated with the Department of Environmental Biotechnology, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. Thorsten Hüffer and Thilo Hofmann are affiliated with the Deparment of Environmental Geosciences (EDGE) at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS), University of Vienna, Austria.
