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Microplastic in the Aquatic Environment and their Impact on Aquatic Organisms and Humans: A Review
Summary
This review summarizes research on microplastic occurrence across marine water, freshwater, drinking water, wastewater, food, and air, characterizing microplastics as the most hazardous emerging contaminants of the 21st century given their ubiquity and persistence. The review underscores that human exposure through multiple simultaneous pathways — including food, water, and respiration — makes understanding cumulative health risks a critical research and public health priority.
Plastic which was first manufactured in the early 20th century became indispensable for human life in the second half of the 20 th century as it makes daily life more manageable (buckets to the car of plastic were manufactured), but due to indiscriminate use in cleaning, packaging, cosmetics, pharmaceutical industry, automobile industry, construction etc. and mismanaged disposal has produces the number of unsolvable problems. Microplastics are plastic fragments of <5 mm size produced from plastic, textile fibres due to environmental factors. Microplastics detected in marine water, surface water, fresh water, wastewater, food, air, and drinking water (tap as well as bottled water) are the globally most hazardous environmental contaminants of the 21st century.
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