Microplastics in Soils as a Source of Pollution and Environmental Risk

This chapter gives an overview of the relations between microplastics and soils based on a deep review of the latest research, mainly centered in the last 10 years. Plastics are widely used materials and their degradation produces plastics of minor size (<5 mm), microplastics, that are persistent and appear distributed all over the world. A high interest is related to the presence of plastics in soils due to possible environmental pollution, considering that soil is a basic resource associated with the food chain. The main objectives of this chapter are to review the main sources of plastics and microplastics, their environmental concern, and the methods used to determine their presence in soils. As conclusions, it can be stated that further future research needs to be done focusing on microplastics in soils, and that there is an urgent need of developing standardized methods for sampling, extraction, and detection of plastic when analyzing soil samples.