Nanoplastics as burgeoning hazardous contaminant to aquatic environment

Micro and Nanoplastics in Aquatic Environment

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This book chapter reviews how advances in polymer science over the past century and a half have made plastics ubiquitous, and how that has led to escalating micro- and nanoplastic contamination of aquatic environments worldwide. Understanding the origins and environmental behavior of these particles is foundational to assessing the risks they pose to aquatic life and human health.

Impact of Microplastics and Nanoplastics in the Aquatic Environment

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Researchers reviewed the environmental impacts of microplastics and nanoplastics in aquatic ecosystems, documenting how their ubiquitous presence disrupts food webs, causes physical and chemical harm to aquatic organisms, and raises concerns about bioaccumulation up the food chain to humans.

Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Aquatic Environments: Challenges and Threats to Aquatic Organisms

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Micro- and nanoplastics have been detected across a wide range of aquatic organisms from microalgae to fish, disrupting metabolic, physiological, and behavioral processes at both cellular and ecosystem levels. Their persistence and increasing abundance in oceans make them a growing food safety threat as plastic contamination moves up the aquatic food chain toward human consumption.

Micro- and nano-plastics: an emerging contaminant in marine and freshwater ecosystems

The threats of micro- and nanoplastics to aquatic ecosystems and water health

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This review details how micro- and nanoplastics in global water sources indirectly threaten water quality by disrupting carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur biogeochemical cycles, transporting pathogens, and amplifying the persistence and bioavailability of co-occurring contaminants. The analysis calls for advanced water treatment technologies, early warning systems, and integrated regulatory frameworks to protect water security from the cascading effects of microplastic pollution.