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Fate of microplastics and emerging contaminants: Mechanisms of interactions, bioaccumulation and combined toxicity to aquatic organisms
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This review summarizes how microplastics interact with other emerging contaminants in water, finding that microplastics can absorb pollutants at concentrations up to a million times higher than surrounding water and carry them into living organisms. The combined toxicity of microplastics plus these hitchhiking chemicals is often greater than either alone, and these pollutants can reach humans through the food chain.
Microplastics (MPs) pose a major environmental challenge owing to their persistence and interactions with emerging contaminants (ECs). Their co-occurrence raises concerns about combined effects on aquatic ecosystems. MPs transport hydrophobic pollutants, affecting water quality. Studies show MPs can adsorb ECs at concentrations up to 106 times higher than their natural levels, increasing bioavailability. MPs and ECs accumulate in aquatic organisms, with evidence of trophic transfer. Their combined toxicity is often greater than their individual effects, causing physiological stress, reduced survival rates and microbial alterations, including enhanced antibiotic resistance. Beyond aquatic ecosystems, MPs and ECs pose risks to human health via bioaccumulation in the food chain. This review analyzes the mechanisms of interactions between MPs and ECs, including uptake, accumulation, and toxicity in aquatic organisms. These findings highlight the need for an integrated environmental impact assessment. Finally, future research directions are proposed, emphasizing key parameters to advance understanding in this field.
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Source, transport, and toxicity of emerging contaminants in aquatic environments: A review on recent studies
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This review examines emerging contaminants in water, with a focus on how microplastics act as carriers for other pollutants due to their strong ability to absorb chemicals. When microplastics carry these hitchhiking pollutants, the combined effect on aquatic organisms can be amplified thousands of times as they move up the food chain. The findings highlight how microplastic pollution does not just add plastic to the environment but also concentrates and transports other harmful chemicals toward humans.
Microplastics and associated emerging contaminants in the environment: Analysis, sorption mechanisms and effects of co-exposure
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Researchers reviewed how microplastics act as carriers for other environmental pollutants — including antibiotics, PFAS, and triclosan — absorbing them from surrounding water and potentially delivering higher doses to organisms that ingest the plastic, with combined toxicity effects that can be either amplified or reduced depending on the combination.
A review on the combined toxicological effects of microplastics and their attached pollutants
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Researchers reviewed how microplastics act as carriers for other environmental pollutants — including heavy metals and persistent organic chemicals — and how these combinations produce toxic effects in organisms that are more severe than either contaminant alone. The findings highlight a complex, layered toxicity problem that affects microbes, invertebrates, and vertebrates across marine and terrestrial environments.
Microplastics–Pollutant Interactions in Environmental Systems: Mechanisms, Ecological Effects, and Implications for Sustainable Management
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Tiny plastic bits called microplastics don't just pollute on their own—they can act like sponges, soaking up other harmful chemicals from water, soil, and air, then carrying and releasing them in ways that make those toxins more likely to build up in animals and move up the food chain. This review pulls together existing research to explain how that process works and why it matters, since these plastic-chemical combos may increase human exposure to pollutants through our food and environment. The authors also point to practical fixes—like better wastewater treatment and monitoring—that could help reduce this compounded risk.
Effect of microplastics on the environmental behavior of emerging contaminants in aquatic matrices
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This study examines how microplastics affect the environmental behavior of emerging contaminants in aquatic systems. Microplastics can adsorb other pollutants and alter their bioavailability, potentially increasing or decreasing toxic effects depending on the chemicals and environmental conditions.
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