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Are microplastics in livestock and poultry manure an emerging threat to agricultural soil safety?
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This review examines the overlooked problem of microplastics in livestock and poultry manure, which enters agricultural soil when manure is used as fertilizer. Manure processing can actually make microplastics smaller, rougher, and more numerous, and the particles often carry additional pollutants like heavy metals, antibiotics, and pathogens. This creates a concerning cycle where microplastics from animal feed and farm equipment contaminate manure, which then introduces these particles directly into cropland and the food supply.
Microplastics (MPs) have attracted much attention in recent years, due to the difficulty of degradation and threats to ecological systems and humans. Based on the analysis of 1429 articles on MPs in soil, we found that we know little about the behavior and fate of manure-born MPs from the livestock and poultry production systems to agriculture soils. This review summarizes the analytical methods for sampling, separation, and identification and the occurrence of MPs in livestock and poultry manure, mainly based on 7 surveys related to manure-born MPs. Then, the sources, fate, and environmental risks of MPs in livestock and poultry manure are discussed. MPs, heavy metals, pathogens, antibiotic resistance genes, and persistent organic pollutants are common pollutants in livestock and poultry manure. Worse, manure-born MPs will become smaller, rougher, and more numerous and could easily form more toxic compound pollution after complicated processes of manure treatment, which seriously threatens agricultural soil safety. Finally, an outlook is offered for future research. We hope this article to attract attention to the risks of MPs in livestock and poultry manure and provide a reference for future research.
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