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It is time to learn from the timeline of micro and nano-plastic pollution
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Researchers built the first quantitative framework to distribute a plastic item's total mass across short-term, long-term (deferred), and incineration-converted fractions across its full lifespan, finding that deferred microplastic emissions during landfilling—not first-use fragmentation—represent the dominant and largely overlooked source of microplastic pollution, while policy attention remains focused on early-stage emissions.
Despite growing concerns about the emission of micro- and nanoparticles (MNPs) from plastic, very little is known about the temporal distribution of these emissions throughout a plastic item's entire lifespan. Our ignorance is even greater when it comes to the long-term fate of these highly persistent polymers during and after use, when emissions are deferred by decades. For the first time, we have developed a realistic framework that can accurately estimate the distribution of the total item's initial mass between (i) first (short- and medium- term) MNPs emissions, (ii) deferred (long-term) MNPs emissions and (iii) the part that is molecularly converted into carbon footprint (e.g. by incineration), using existing data and conservative assumptions. Temporal considerations relating to clothing, tyres, bottles and paint, reveal that plastic downcycling drastically increases the first MNPs emission and that the main source of MNPs pollution is the overlooked deferred MNPs emissions (e.g. during item's landfilling) while policy priorities focus on first microplastic emissions.
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