Microplastic Pollution in the Environment

Plastic rubbles, either microplastic or nanoplastics, are currently documented as emerging environmental pollutants. These emerging pollutants are potentially toxic and threats to natural and human environments, wildlife, and aquatic animals. In the past three decades, increasing focus has been directed toward investigating the presence, occurrence, sources, and concentrations of these plastic rubbles in ecosystems such as marine, urban, and semi-urban areas, roadways, and surface and groundwater waters. The chapter presents the spatial distributions of microplastic materials in urban and rural environments. Over 50 articles on microplastics in urban and rural environments were reviewed and discussed. In the chapter, scientific data, information, and literature widely describe the ingestion of these plastic rubbles by aquatic animals such as fauna. These aquatic animals transfer plastic rubbles into food webs in the environment and possibly act as vectors for toxic compounds or extra-terrestrial microorganisms. Research findings have addressed some of these critical issues with significant efforts, but many issues and questions remain open. Some of the issues include the new origins and microplastic sources that have been documented. The impacts of these new microplastics and their possible main environmental impacts related to the previously identified microplastics. It was concluded with several types of emerging pollutants and possible sources in urban settings.