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A Review of Recent Research on Biodegradation of Plastic Additives in the Environment
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This review summarizes environmental biodegradation research on four major plastic additive groups — phthalates, bisphenols, organic phosphate esters, and brominated flame retardants — finding that while biodegradation conditions have been studied, knowledge of toxicity changes after degradation remains limited. The authors call for future research examining mixtures of additives and diverse microbial communities to better understand real-world degradation processes.
Plastic additives, which impart various functional properties to plastics, are susceptible to environmental release upon plastic waste disposal.Although these additives are subject to environmental degradation, our understanding of the degradation processes involved remains limited.This review summarizes recent studies on the presence, degradation, and ecotoxicity of four plastic additive groups (i.e., phthalates, bisphenols, organic phosphate esters (OPE), and brominated flame retardants (BFR)) to identify future research directions.More studies have reported environmental residues of phthalates and bisphenols than of OPE and BFR.Biodegradation studies primarily focused on identifying the optimal removal conditions by examining various influencing factors, such as initial additive concentration, temperature, and pH.Also, most studies have largely focused on biodegradation of a single additive compound by single microbial species.While the toxic effects of parent compounds of different plastic additives have been reported, studies on the changes in the toxicity of plastic additives after biodegradation were limited.Therefore, future studies on plastic additives should take into account the diversity of additives and the co-occurrence of different additives and microorganisms to enhance understanding of plastic additive biodegradation in the environment.
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