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Degradation mechanism of microplastics and potential risks during sewage sludge co-composting: A comprehensive review
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This review examines how aerobic composting of sewage sludge can break down microplastics, but also identifies risks in the process. While composting shows promise as a green method for degrading microplastics, it can also release plastic additives and change the types of microplastics present. The study highlights that compost made from sewage sludge may inadvertently spread microplastics and their associated chemicals into agricultural soil.
Microplastics (MPs) as a kind of emerging contaminants, widely exists in various kinds of medium, sewage sludge (SS) is no exception. In the sewage treatment process, a large number of microplastics will be deposited in SS. More seriously, microplastics in sewage sludge can migrate to other environmental media and threaten human health. Therefore, it is necessary to remove MPs from SS. Among the various restorations, aerobic composting is emerging as a green microplastic removal method. There are more and more reports of using aerobic compost to degrade microplastics. However, there are few reports on the degradation mechanism of MPs in aerobic composting, hindering the innovation of aerobic composting methods. Therefore, in this paper, the degradation mechanism of MPs in SS is discussed based on the environmental factors such as physical, chemical and biological factors in the composting process. In addition, this paper expounds the MPs in potential hazards, and combined with the problems in the present study were studied the outlook.
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