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Remediation Strategies for Micro(Nano)Plastics
Summary
This chapter reviews physical, chemical, and biological methods for removing microplastics and nanoplastics from terrestrial and aquatic environments, concluding that many contaminated sites cannot currently be cleaned up with available technology because the costs and energy demands are too high. A particularly urgent gap identified is the lack of established protocols for removing nanoplastics, which are too small to be addressed by most current approaches.
Microplastics and nanoplastics are emerging pollutants that are dispersed in all terrestrial and aquatic environments, can be toxic to some species, and have an affinity with other hydrophobic pollutants and low biodegradation rates. Therefore, it is necessary to implement remediation and containment strategies to reduce its presence in the environment. This chapter reviews the physical, chemical, and biological methodologies currently being used, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each of them are exposed. Some of the most relevant findings were that most of the MP distributed in different matrices were impossible to remove because they are economically, technically, and energetically unfeasible; therefore, they would have to wait for natural attenuation processes. Another relevant point is the need to establish protocols for removing nanoplastics, because they are not considered because of their size.
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