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Microplastic Pollution
Summary
This review summarizes the current state of microplastic pollution across water, soil, air, and food, highlighting their ability to carry other toxins like heavy metals and PCBs. The authors note that microplastics accumulate in the food web, moving from the environment into agricultural products and eventually into the human body. The review emphasizes that a unified, comprehensive approach to studying microplastics across all environmental sources is needed to fully understand the health risks.
Microplastics (MPs) are one of the important emerging environmental pollutants that can be present in different environmental source from water and soil to air. These pollutants have gained attention over the recent years due to their easy degradation process and high bioaccumulation rates in the food web. MPs can transport a variety of pollutants and toxins, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and heavy metals, from nature to agricultural products due to their hydrophobic qualities. While MP contamination is often determined in water bodies, soil, air, and food products partially, the whole assessment of MP bioaccumulation and biodegradation chain from nature to the consumer through the food chain still remains well understood. In this chapter, the ecological risks of MP accumulation in terms of biodiversity and sustainability will be evaluated using a holistic approach. Additionally, the current and potential exposure of humans to MP accumulation through the food web is deeply discussed. These holistic approaches offer the opportunity to better understand the detrimental impact of MPs on the ecology and food safety, thus the sustainability of the population.