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Papers
20 resultsShowing papers similar to Agricultural Waste Management for Food Security and Sustainability
ClearMicrobial Degradation of Agricultural and Food Wastes into Value-Added Products
This review covers microbial biodegradation of agricultural and food waste into bioenergy and other products, noting plastic waste from agriculture — including microplastics — as an urgent pollution concern in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. It discusses factors affecting plastic biodegradation and highlights the promise of converting waste into value-added outputs like biogas and fertilizer.
Agricultural plastics and environmental sustainability: Assessment and remediation strategies
This review examines the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of agricultural plastics including mulch films, irrigation pipes, and greenhouse covers, and evaluates management strategies such as recycling, composting, biodegradable alternatives, and circular economy models for reducing microplastic accumulation.
Turning trash into tools: agricultural waste-derived biochars and composites for microplastic removal from wastewater
This review examined the use of agricultural waste-derived biochars and biochar composites as sustainable sorbents for microplastic removal from wastewater. Researchers summarised how engineered biochars produced from crop residues and other agricultural biowaste can be functionalized to achieve efficient microplastic remediation, offering a circular economy approach to both waste valorisation and pollution control.
Plastic Pollution in Agriculture as a Threat to Food Security, the Ecosystem, and the Environment: An Overview
This review examines how plastic products used in agriculture -- from mulch films to greenhouse covers -- contribute to microplastic pollution in soil, water, and crops. While plastics help boost crop production and food quality, their breakdown releases microplastics that can be taken up by plants and enter the food chain. The paper discusses strategies to reduce plastic pollution in farming, which is important because agricultural microplastics represent a direct pathway to human dietary exposure.
A Review of Microplastic Contamination in Agriculture: Sources, Impacts, and Solutions
This review examines the sources, occurrence, and impacts of microplastic pollution in agriculture, including degradation of mulch films, contaminated sewage sludge, and polymer-coated agrochemicals. Researchers highlight evidence that crops can take up microplastics, creating a direct pathway for food chain contamination. The study calls for standardized analytical methods and a comprehensive mitigation strategy based on refusing, redesigning, reducing, reusing, recycling, and recovering agricultural plastics.
Microplastics in composts, digestates, and food wastes: A review
This review examines how food waste composting and recycling processes can introduce microplastics into agricultural soil. When food waste mixed with plastic packaging is composted or processed through anaerobic digestion, microplastic fragments can end up in the soil amendments spread on farmland. The findings highlight an overlooked pathway by which microplastics enter the food chain, as crops grown in contaminated compost may absorb or accumulate plastic particles.
From waste to resource: unveiling the nexus between compost, microplastics, and agroecosystem
This review examines how compost derived from municipal waste introduces microplastics into agricultural soils, with polypropylene, polyethylene, and PET being the most commonly found polymers. Researchers found that smaller microplastic particles pose greater risks to agroecosystem sustainability, and that even bioplastics can persist as a non-point source of contamination. The study suggests that adding biochar during composting and stricter monitoring of feedstock quality could help reduce microplastic contamination.
Opportunities and challenges organo-mineral fertiliser can play in enabling food security
This review examines organo-mineral fertilizers, which combine organic waste materials like manure and food scraps with reduced amounts of conventional mineral fertilizers, as a strategy for more sustainable farming. While not about microplastics specifically, the study is relevant because sewage biosolids used in organic fertilizer blends can contain microplastics that then enter agricultural soil. The review discusses policy interventions needed to balance food security with environmental protection.
Waste-Derived Fertilizers: Conversion Technologies, Circular Bioeconomy Perspectives and Agronomic Value
This review examined technologies for converting organic wastes (manure, food residues, sewage sludge, combustion by-products) into fertilizers, evaluating biological, thermal, and chemical processes. The authors noted that waste-derived fertilizers can introduce microplastics and other contaminants into agricultural soils and called for better characterization of these inputs.
Lignocellulosic Agricultural Waste Valorization to Obtain Valuable Products: An Overview
This review covers methods for turning agricultural plant waste into valuable products like biofuels, bioplastics, and animal feed. While not directly about microplastics, it is relevant because developing bioplastics from plant waste could reduce dependence on petroleum-based plastics that break down into microplastics. These sustainable alternatives could help decrease the amount of microplastic pollution entering the environment and food chain.
A comprehensive review of food waste valorization for the sustainable management of global food waste
This review examines methods for turning food waste into valuable products as part of sustainable waste management. While not directly about microplastics, the topic is relevant because food waste and plastic waste are often mixed together in waste streams, and food packaging is a major source of microplastic contamination. Better food waste management could help reduce the spread of microplastics that often accompany food waste into the environment.
Agricultural Microplastics Pollution: From Hidden Threats to Global Food Security Towards Sustainable Strategies
This comprehensive review examines agricultural microplastic pollution across the atmosphere, soil, water, and biological systems, proposing a framework linking farming-derived MP contamination to food security risks and calling for integrated approaches to manage MNPs in agricultural systems.
Microplastics in Agriculture- a Review
This review examines the growing presence of microplastics in agricultural environments, covering their sources from plastic mulch films and irrigation water, their effects on soil health and crop quality, and the implications for food safety and sustainable agriculture.
Towards a Sustainable Future: Advancing an Integrated Approach for the Recycling and Valorization of Agricultural Plastics
This review surveys current methods for recycling and valorizing agricultural plastics—films, mulches, and greenhouse covers—highlighting that inadequate end-of-life management leads to soil and water contamination and eventual microplastic formation. A more integrated, circular approach to agricultural plastic design and disposal is needed to prevent these materials from fragmenting into persistent environmental pollutants.
Microplastics in Agricultural Soils: An Emerging Threat to Soil Health, Microbial Ecology, Crop Productivity, and Food Safety
This review examines how microplastics accumulate in agricultural soils from sources like plastic mulch, sewage sludge, and atmospheric deposition. Researchers found that these particles can disrupt soil microbial communities, harm plant health, and potentially enter the human food chain. The study highlights the urgent need for mitigation strategies to address this growing but often overlooked form of pollution in farmland.
Origin, Distribution, Fate, and Remediation of Microplastics in Biowastes and Biowaste-Amended Soil
This review chapter tracks how microplastics enter agricultural soil through land-applied biowastes — manure, compost, crop residues, and biosolids — and how they then become available for uptake by soil organisms and entry into the food chain. Because microplastics adsorb other contaminants and act as vectors for co-pollutants, the authors argue that biowaste land application is a significant but underappreciated pathway for microplastic accumulation in the human food supply.
Microplastics in agricultural soils: sources, impacts, and mitigation strategies
This review summarizes how microplastics enter agricultural soils through wastewater irrigation, plastic mulch breakdown, and atmospheric deposition, where they alter soil structure, microbial communities, and water retention. The particles can also carry heavy metals and organic pollutants into the food chain, threatening both crop productivity and human health, making it important to reduce plastic use in farming and improve waste management.
Treated wastewater irrigation: unlocking sustainability in agriculture and food security—a comprehensive review
This comprehensive review explores treated wastewater as an alternative irrigation source for agriculture in water-scarce regions. While treated wastewater can improve soil fertility and crop growth, the review notes concerns about contaminants including microplastics that can accumulate in soil and potentially enter the food chain, emphasizing the need for effective treatment technologies.
The crux of microplastics in soil - a review
This review examined the sources, transport pathways, and ecological impacts of microplastics specifically in agricultural soils, where plastic mulch films, sewage sludge application, and irrigation are key inputs. The authors identify food security and soil ecosystem function as the most pressing concerns and call for targeted research on microplastic-soil-crop interactions.
Microplastics accumulation in agricultural soil: Evidence for the presence, potential effects, extraction, and current bioremediation approaches
This review examines the accumulation of microplastics in agricultural soils from sources like plastic mulching and irrigation, discussing their effects on soil properties and crop growth, along with current bioremediation approaches for removing soil microplastics.