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Coupled effects of microplastics and heavy metals on plants: Uptake, bioaccumulation, and environmental health perspectives
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This review examines how microplastics and heavy metals work together to harm plants when both are present in soil. Microplastics can absorb heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and arsenic, and when plants take up these contaminated particles, the combined toxic effect is worse than either pollutant alone. This is concerning for human health because crops grown in contaminated soil could carry both microplastics and concentrated heavy metals into the food supply.
Microplastic pollution has severe ecological and environmental concerns because of its enormous production and discharge in natural ecosystems worldwide. Microplastics interact with heavy metals and metalloids like arsenic, chromium, copper, cadmium, and lead in soil and can cause detrimental effects on soil structure and microbial activities and subsequently impact the plants and human health. This article focuses on microplastic translocation from soil to plants together with heavy metals. Microplastic exposure impacts biomass, photosynthetic activity, chlorophyll content, root and shoot length in the plants through apoplastic and symplastic pathways. Microplastics can also indirectly affect the plant growth by changing soil nutrient content and microbial community structure. At the same time, microplastics can absorb heavy metals and increase phytotoxicity in plants. However, the current knowledge about the coupled effect of heavy metals and microplastics bioaccumulation in plants is limited. It is postulated that heavy metals and microplastics collectively impact the chlorophyll content, photosynthetic activity, and induction of reactive oxygen species in plants. This work also outlines the environmental health perspectives based on microplastic and heavy metals toxicity and provides a guideline for future research on the coupled effects of heavy metals and microplastics on plants and humans.
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This review examines how microplastics and heavy metals like lead, cadmium, and arsenic interact in soil, often creating combined toxic effects on plants that differ from either pollutant alone. These interactions are relevant to human health because contaminated crops can transfer both microplastics and heavy metals to people through the food supply.
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This review summarizes how microplastics and heavy metals interact in soil to affect plant growth and the surrounding ecosystem. When present together, these pollutants cause significantly more harm than either alone, reducing plant weight by up to 87.5% and altering how heavy metals accumulate in crops -- raising concerns about food safety and human exposure through contaminated agricultural products.
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This review examines how microplastics and arsenic interact in soil and their combined effects on plant health. When both pollutants are present together, they can have amplified toxic effects on plants, affecting growth, nutrient uptake, and stress responses. Since plants absorb these contaminants from soil, the interaction between microplastics and arsenic could increase human exposure to both pollutants through food crops.
Impact of Co-Contaminants (Microplastics and Others) on Heavy Metal/Metalloid Toxicity and Accumulation in Plants
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This review examines how microplastics act as co-contaminants alongside heavy metals and metalloids in agricultural soils, influencing their toxicity and uptake by plants. Researchers found that the presence of microplastics can alter how metals like cadmium, arsenic, and lead accumulate in plant tissues, with implications for crop safety and agricultural productivity.
A critical review of co-pollution of microplastics and heavy metals in agricultural soil environments
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This review examines how microplastics and heavy metals frequently occur together in agricultural soil, where they interact in ways that can increase the toxicity of both. These co-contaminants can harm soil organisms, reduce crop productivity, and potentially enter the human food chain, making their combined presence in farmland a growing concern for food safety and health.
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