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Microplastic pollution: how bad is it and what can we do to solve it?
Summary
This accessible overview article explained what microplastics are, how widespread their environmental contamination has become, and what strategies are being explored to reduce plastic pollution. The piece highlights the urgency of understanding and addressing microplastic pollution in aquatic and marine ecosystems.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines microplastics as any type of plastic fragment that measures less than 5mm in length.Plastics have always been notorious for their damaging effect on the environment, not least because of how slowly they degrade, so improving understanding of microplastics pollution in the environment -particularly in aquatic and marine ecosystems -is essential.Given the small size of microplastics, they can be ingested by animals at the bottom of the marine food chain, causing unknown damage to the ecosystems they form part of.