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Interactions among Heavy Metals, Microplastics and Pesticides in Soil and Advances in Microbial Remediation
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Tiny plastic bits in farm soil don't just pollute on their own—they can grab onto heavy metals and pesticides, making these toxins travel farther, last longer, or become more harmful together than any one pollutant alone, which matters since this soil grows the food we eat. This review pulls together existing research on how these three pollutants interact, and highlights promising work using soil bacteria and plants to break down or neutralize this combined contamination. The main takeaway: scientists still don't fully understand how these pollutants team up in real-world conditions, so more research is needed before we can reliably clean up farmland facing this triple threat.
With the rapid development of intensive agriculture and the extensive use of agricultural inputs, soil environments are increasingly exposed to complex composite pollution dominated by heavy metals, microplastics (MPs), and pesticides. Microplastics, characterized by small particle size, large specific surface area, and strong hydrophobicity, can act as important carriers of various pollutants. Through adsorption–desorption processes, MPs significantly influence the migration, transformation, bioavailability, and ecological toxicity of heavy metals and pesticides in soil systems. Meanwhile, heavy metals and pesticides can also interact with each other, leading to synergistic, additive, or antagonistic effects that further complicate environmental behaviors and ecological risks. This review systematically summarizes the interaction mechanisms among heavy metals, microplastics, and pesticides in soil environments, focusing on adsorption–desorption behaviors, co-migration processes, and toxicity responses. The effects of physicochemical properties of MPs, pollutant characteristics, and environmental conditions on these interactions are discussed in detail. In addition, the current advances in microbial remediation technologies are reviewed, including microbial degradation of microplastics, microbial immobilization of heavy metals, and microbial degradation of pesticides. The roles of key functional enzymes, metabolic pathways, and microbial community interactions are also emphasized. Furthermore, the potential of microbial consortia and plant–microbe combined remediation strategies for treating composite pollution is highlighted, with particular attention to rhizosphere processes and synergistic mechanisms. Although significant progress has been made in understanding single or binary pollutant systems, studies on heavy metal–microplastic–pesticide composite pollution remain limited. Future research should focus on elucidating the synergistic mechanisms among multiple pollutants, improving the stability of microbial systems under complex stress conditions, and developing efficient, scalable remediation technologies. This review provides a theoretical basis for the risk assessment and remediation of composite pollution in agricultural soils.
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This study investigated how heavy metals, microplastics, and pesticides interact when they contaminate soil together, finding that their combined effects are complex and often worse than any single pollutant. Microplastics can absorb and concentrate both heavy metals and pesticides, changing how these chemicals move through soil and into plants. The findings highlight how agricultural soils contaminated with multiple pollutants could increase human exposure through crops grown in that soil.
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This review summarizes how microplastics interact with other pollutants like heavy metals and pesticides in soil, creating combined toxic effects that threaten ecosystems and agriculture. The paper highlights that microplastics can change soil structure and disrupt the communities of microorganisms that keep soil healthy, with ripple effects on crop yields and food security.
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This review examines how microplastics and heavy metals frequently occur together in agricultural soil, where they interact in ways that can increase the toxicity of both. These co-contaminants can harm soil organisms, reduce crop productivity, and potentially enter the human food chain, making their combined presence in farmland a growing concern for food safety and health.
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