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Microplastics as contaminants in the Brazilian environment: an updated review
Summary
A comprehensive review of 79 Brazilian microplastic studies published between 2018 and 2022 found microplastics widespread across marine and terrestrial environments, with marine coastal studies dominating the literature and polyethylene and polypropylene fragments being the most common types detected. The review highlights significant gaps in inland and atmospheric monitoring and a lack of standardized methods that hinders cross-study comparisons — critical issues for a country with one of the world's longest coastlines and major river systems.
Microplastics have long been present in marine and terrestrial environments and have emerged in recent decades as a global environmental concern. This pollutant has been detected with increasing frequency in Brazilian territory and herein primarily highlights current information and developments about the quantity, distribution, techniques of identification, origins, and sources of microplastics and related pollutants in the Brazilian environment. We evaluated 79 publications from 2018 to December 2022, and some aspects can be highlighted: 27% of studies were published in the Journal Marine Pollution Bulletin; 22% of all studies were conducted in São Paulo city; and 52% of all microplastics found were collected from biota followed by sediment samples. According to the findings given here, microplastics in Brazilian habitats, which can reach concentrations of 4367 to 25,794 items m in sediments, are becoming a serious problem in the Anthropocene age, and some topics regarding the open questions in this area were pointed out in this review.