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Bioremediation as a promising strategy for microplastics removal in wastewater treatment plants
Summary
This review examines how microplastics move through wastewater treatment systems and evaluates bioremediation approaches using higher aquatic organisms like animals, seagrasses, and macrophytes as promising but underexplored strategies. The challenge of containing these organisms within treatment plants is identified as a key barrier to practical implementation.
Microplastics (MPs) attract ever-increasing attention due to environmental concerns. Nowadays, they are ubiquitous across ecosystems, and research demonstrates that the origin is mainly terrestrial. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are a major source of MPs, especially fibres, in water masses. This review is focused on understanding the evolution and fate of microplastics during wastewater treatment processes with the aim of identifying advanced technologies to eliminate microplastics from the water stream. Among them, bioremediation has been highlighted as a promising tool, but confinement of microorganisms inside the WWTP is still a challenge. The potential for MPs bioremediation in WWTPs of higher aquatic eukaryotes, which offer the advantages of low dispersion rates and being easy to contain, is reviewed. Animals, seagrasses and macrophytes are considered, taking into account ecoethical and biological issues. Necessary research and its challenges have been identified.