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Plastics and microplastics
Summary
Plastic production has skyrocketed over the past 50 years, and much of it ends up in landfills or waterways, where it breaks down into tiny fragments called microplastics (less than 5 millimeters). This review paper explains how these microplastics can enter our bodies through our skin, food, and even the air we breathe, potentially causing damage at the cellular level and carrying other harmful chemicals like antibiotics along with them. As plastic waste is projected to nearly triple by 2030, understanding these health risks matters more than ever for everyday consumers.
Plastics are synthetic compounds made up of carbon chain monomers linked by the atoms of hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulfur. These plastics are categorized into thermoplastics and thermosets. Thermoplastics are the plastics where the used polymers can be heated to soften them to produce different products, whereas the thermosets are the single-time application plastics, unlike the thermoplastics, these polymers are denser and have hard cross-linked molecular chains due to which they don’t lose their fragility when heated. In the past 50 years, the production of this plastics is raised 20 times globally, estimating around 6,900 million tons are dumped in landfills ( Brooks et al., 2018 ). Despite this, plastic used in the food and beverage industries and for packaging is being utilized once, contributing 61% of global beach litter. The studies show that around 19–23 million tons of wastes dispersed into the aquatic system in 2016 are expected to reach 53 million tons by 2030 ( Borrelle et al., 2020 ). The dispersed nature of these polymers results in significant negative effects on both land and water creatures ( Galloway & Lewis, 2016 ). These plastics degrade into MPs owing to factors such as UV light, chemicals, and bacteria ( Ter Halle et al., 2016 ). These MPs measure about less than 5 millimeters. MPs are categorized into primary and secondary MPs. Primary MPs are manufactured in industries in different forms and shapes which is been utilized in personal care products, whereas the secondary MPs are the plastics which are fragmented from their original composition through environmental factors. MPs are a global problem due to their impact on human health through skin penetration, ingestion, and inhalation. And also, at the level of toxicity, it affects in the mode of cellular level in human health. Being as a vector, it has the ability to amplify the pollutants in the environment such as antibioticsn and plasticizer ( Sun & Wang, 2023 ).