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Marine Pollution by Microplastics in the Mediterranean Sea
Summary
This review synthesizes the state of knowledge on microplastic pollution in the Mediterranean Sea, identifying Egypt, Turkey, and Italy as the top contributing coastal nations. The authors highlight major uncertainties in understanding microplastic interactions with biota and potential effects on human health.
Worldwide, plastic debris is becoming a great environmental problem, with potentially negative effects also on human health, although currently the topic is highly debated in the scientific community. In the basin, microplastics come mainly from three coastal regions, namely Egypt, Turkey and Italy, in decreasing order. Today, the knowledge about the possible interactions of microplastics in the biotic system is unclear and huge efforts are required to discover their effects on human health. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the production and use of plastics by investing money in research planning and strengthening any kind of human efforts to solve this new kind of marine pollution.
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