Thames Manta Project

Sampling for microplastics on the Thames and Medway.

Despite a number of pieces of work on the Thames and Microplastics, there has been no strategic or temporal study of microbeads on the Thames or Medway Estuaries. However the ban that came in 2018 presented a key point to start to monitor the improvement such interventions make on the environment. 

Thames Manta project therefore focuses on sampling water quality in Thames and Medway rivers. Sampling has been running for 6 years now (2018-2023), and currently the results are being researched and analysed at Brunel University’s laboratories, thanks to the support of their academic staff and students. 

The manta deployed
Samples with microbeads

Specific sites would have been given to confirmed attendees, timings are for planning purposes. Weather may have caused surveying to be cancelled, therefore the samples may not have been perfectly consecutive. We estimate that the monitoring results will be ready in 2025.

Thames Manta Volunteering

Resources

Funding

We are great full for all our supporters, funders and volunteers that make this project possible.