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A review on occurrence and environmental risk assessment for microplastics in freshwater systems
Summary
This review covers the occurrence, distribution, and health risks of microplastics across aquatic environments, food sources, and the atmosphere. It evaluates evidence for human exposure through multiple pathways and identifies gaps in understanding the full health impacts of chronic microplastic ingestion.
Microplastics (MPs), a plastic debris with a particle diameter of less than 5 mm, are a pollutant of environmental concern and have received attention in recent years. The effects of MPs on the human body and the cause of their occurrence have not been clarified, but there is no doubt that the concentration in the natural environment surrounding human life is increasing. Therefore, it is necessary to make efforts to establish the basis of MPs investigation system and risk. In the future, various researches should be carried out in order to establish scientific basis such as investigation of source and contamination status of MPs at the national level, the degree of bioaccumulation and influence of MPs emitted into aquatic ecosystem, and the harmfulness of MPs themselves. In this study, we intended to look into other studies on the collected sampling methods, pretreatment methods, and analysis methods in order to help better understand MPs in freshwater. In addition, we reviewed relating to the potential environmental risks and impacts on MPs in the freshwater environment, and proposed the risk assessment models of MPs in freshwater environments. This study will be helpful to the future research on the monitoring system, human health risk, and development of environmental policies to manage the MPs pollution.
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