Microplastics in Human Consumption

Dr E.V. Ramasamy is a Professor at School of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He is also the Dean, Faculty of Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences, former Director of School of Environmental Sciences. In his 30 years of professional career, he has guided 16 PhD scholars, 30 MPhil scholars and 120 research publications including three books to his credit. He is also serving as member of several committees of Government of Kerala such as : State Waste Management Policy Committee and the Technical committee of Suchitwa Mission, Local Self Government Department (LSGD); Member, Kerala State Council for Science, Technology & Environment (KSCSTE) - Programme Advisory Committee for Environment and Ecology programme Govt. of Kerala. He has also participated in Indian Arctic Expedition (Summer batch 2019) and Indian Scientific Expedition to Southern Ocean (Antarctic water) ISESO 2020, in both these expeditions he has done research on Microplastics in Polar environment. He has been awarded with DUO-India 2020 Professor Fellowship Award by ASEM-DUO Fellowship Program (Seoul, Korea).

He works on Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management, wastewater treatment, Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs), water pollutants like heavy metals, landfill leachates and microplastics. His work on Earthworms and soil carbon dynamics has been published in Scientific Reports of Nature publishing group. His paper on Microplastics in the sediments of Vembanad Lake was the First report from India, the recent publication on Microplastics in the Kongsfjord , Arctic was the outcome of his Polar research published in 2021.

Dr Ajay Kumar Harit has served as Research Associate at School of Environmental Sciences, Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala, His doctorate is from Pondicherry University (A Central University), Puducherry. He did his post-doctoral work at Indo-French Cell for Water Sciences, Civil Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore during 2016-17. He was awarded with DST-SERB-National Post-Doctoral fellowship (N-PDF) in 2017, he has joined Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam, Kerala as N-PDF in 2017 and completed the Associateship successfully. His doctoral and post-doctoral research work was on exploring the attributes of termites (one of the ecosystem engineers) and their influence in soil and forest ecosystem focusing on soil and nutrient dynamics.

During his stay at Mahatma Gandhi University, he developed his interest in Microplastics research with a focus on monitoring Microplastics contamination in water bodies and human consumable items. He has published research articles on microplastic pollution in the surface sediment of Kongsfjorden, Svalbard Arctic in Marine Pollution Bulletin (Elsevier) as co-author. A book chapter co-authored by Dr Harit has been published by Cuvillier Verlag, Gottingen, Germany. He also presented his research findings in National and International conferences in the field of Microplastics. He has 18 articles (of these 16 in SCI Indexed journal) and two book chapters published to his credit as the outcome of his Doctoral and Post-Doctoral research.