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Distribution of Microplastic Contaminants in the Soil Environment of Some Rural Communities in Bokkos Local Government Area, Plateau State, Nigeria
Summary
Researchers found tiny plastic bits (microplastics) in every soil sample tested across rural farming villages in Nigeria—even in farmland far from obvious plastic sources. The plastic seems to be traveling from roads and homes into nearby crop fields, suggesting that even remote farming communities aren't safe from plastic pollution, which raises concerns about whether these particles could end up in the food grown there.
Microplastic contamination of soils poses an emerging threat to soil function and food security, yet data from rural, smallholder-farming regions of north-central Nigeria remain scarce.This study assessed the abundance and aerial distribution of microplastics in soils across three land-use types, farmland, residential areas, and roadsides, in seven rural communities of Chikam, Kuba, Kunet, Mai Katako, Mbar, Ndar, and Tadin of Bokkos Local Government Area, Plateau State, Nigeria.Composite topsoil samples (0-15 cm) were processed by density separation and peroxide digestion, and microplastic particles were enumerated and expressed as particles per kilogram of dry soil.Microplastics were detected in all twenty-one composite samples, with mean abundances of 16,690 ± 20,391, 24,039 ± 18,943, and 15,126 ± 14,647 particles kg⁻¹ in farmland, residential, and roadside soils, respectively, with the wide magnitude of the standard deviation indicative of the heterogeneous distribution of microplastics among the land use types..A one-way ANOVA indicated no significant differences in abundance among land-use types (p = 0.626), whereas community identity was the dominant source of variability, with the community of Ndar alone contributing 42.2% of the cumulative regional burden.A sourceproximity gradient analysis showed a strong, statistically significant correlation between farmland and roadside abundance (r = 0.988, p < .001)and a significant linear relationship between a composite proximal-source index (residential and roadside soils) and distal farmland abundance (R² = 0.812, p = 0.006), suggesting substantial transport of microplastics from settlement and road corridors into adjoining cultivated land.These results indicate that rural agricultural soils in Plateau State are measurably and spatially linked to nearby anthropogenic plastic sources, which may have implications for soil health.