Collaborating with RMIT to Analyse PFAS

Adrift Lab recently completed field work at Moulting Lagoon, a large, internationally recognised Ramsar Wetland site on the east coast of Tasmania. Over coming weeks, waterbird tissue samples will be analysed for the chemical PFAS, and compared with results from sites across Australia. This research would not have been possible without generous support from local citizen scientists, DPIPWE, and RMIT University.

As with all field work, there were some challenges, and laughs. Access to one site at Moulting Lagoon required a long drive through rocky paddocks. The dirt track was so rough it fooled our FitBit into thinking we’d run >13,000 steps.

Adrift Lab also completed a beach clean-up at Sloop Reef, finding cigarette butts, a plastic straw, and other debris. The data were uploaded to the online AMDI database which now holds more than 10 million clean-up records from citizen scientists across Australia.