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MPGRIDS, global geospatial estimates of microplastic inputs to agricultural soil via organic amendments
Summary
Scientists created the first global map estimating how much microplastic pollution enters farmland through fertilizers made from organic waste—finding that potentially hundreds of thousands to millions of tonnes of plastic bits are added to soils worldwide every year. This matters because these microplastics can build up in the soil where our fruits, vegetables, and other crops grow, raising concerns about long-term contamination of the food we eat and the health of farmland itself. While the exact amounts are still uncertain, this research gives us a starting point for tracking and addressing plastic pollution in our food supply.
Abstract Microplastics (MPs) are increasingly recognized as important contaminants of agricultural soils. Yet a lack of global estimates of MP inputs to agricultural land hampers systematic quantification of both current contamination levels and accumulation over time at scales. Here, we introduce MPGRIDSv1, the first global geospatial dataset of MP inputs into agricultural soils via the application of MP-contaminated organic matter (OM) used as fertilizer. We collected, through a literature survey, the OM amendment rates, A , and the MP concentration, C , in OM for 17 and 26 countries, respectively. Upon assumptions and simplifications for OM composition, and type and appearance of MPs, we estimated high and low values of A and C for 186 countries using statistical inference methods built on 14 independent national-level covariates including waste management, agricultural practices, and environmental and socio-economic factors. High and low estimates of A and C , and the annual mass of MP inputs estimated for countries worldwide were then spatialized on selected fruit, vegetable and pulse crops in the CROPGRIDSv1 dataset. Globally, 33–2316 (910 median) thousand tonnes of MP were estimated to reach agricultural soils annually, with input rates ranging from less than 0.01 to more than 100 kg-MP ha −1 yr −1 worldwide. While these numbers underestimate reality and acknowledging several limitations including paucity of data and uncertainty in existing ones, we expect MPGRIDSv1 to facilitate analyses of agricultural soil degradation globally with geospatial detail.