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Papers
61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Big molecules that do not go away
ClearThe future of plastic
Researchers examine whether biodegradable polymers can solve plastic's environmental crisis, noting that while plastic is enormously useful, society's heavy reliance on it has created a global pollution problem that biodegradable alternatives alone are unlikely to fully resolve.
Polymers and Microplastics: Implications on Our Environment and Sustainability
This review discusses the environmental implications of polymers and microplastics, covering their properties, production trends, degradation pathways, and ecological impacts. It highlights the tension between the industrial utility of plastics and their growing threat to environmental and human health.
Plastics: the big environmental problem of our time
This article examines plastics as one of the most significant contemporary environmental pollutants, discussing the difficulty of environmental absorption and the scale of plastic accumulation across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
On the issue of microplastics in the environment
This paper examines the origins of microplastic pollution, arguing that its emergence is not solely attributable to polymer chemistry advances and cannot be explained simply by physicochemical degradation processes acting on plastic materials.
Pervasive Pollution Problems Caused by Plastics and its Degradation
This review discusses the pervasive environmental pollution caused by plastics and their degradation products, arguing that plastic contamination now affects air, water, food, and all living organisms and requires urgent global action to reduce production and improve waste management.
The planet in the clutches of plastic garbage: myths, reality, prospects
This review examines the life cycle of polymeric materials to analyze sources and accumulation of plastic waste, discussing the micro- and nanoscale fragmentation problem and arguing that solutions must include ecologically safe technologies for recycling, combustion, and landfill disposal of polymeric waste.
Special Issue “Synthesis, Properties and Applications of Polymers”
This special issue introduction reflects on the continuing dominance of plastics in modern materials science, framing the current era as a 'Plastic Age' and contextualizing the collection of polymer synthesis, properties, and applications research within that broader historical frame.
Polymères de synthèse: face à l'inévitable dilemme environnemental
This French-language review traces the growth of synthetic plastic production from 2 million tons in 1950 to nearly 400 million tons in 2022 and examines the environmental consequences of inadequate end-of-life management, including microplastic pollution.
Role of Plastics in Modern Life: Benefits, Risks and Environmental Consequences
This review examines the dual role of plastics in modern society — their economic benefits alongside environmental and public health risks — and surveys strategies for more sustainable plastic production and disposal.
Occurrence, Degradation, and Effect of Polymer-Based Materials in the Environment
This review covers the occurrence, environmental degradation, and ecological effects of polymer-based materials across terrestrial and aquatic environments, including both conventional and biodegradable plastics. It highlights the chemical complexity of plastics — including additives and degradation products — as a key factor determining environmental risk beyond just the physical presence of particles.
Role of Plastics in Modern Life: Benefits, Risks and Environmental Consequences
This review examines the dual role of plastics in modern society — their economic and practical benefits alongside growing environmental and health concerns — calling for a balanced approach to plastic use and waste management.
Microplastics-sources, spread and impact on the living world
This review examines microplastic sources, environmental spread, and biological impacts, covering particles ranging from 1 to 5000 µm in diameter derived from plastic degradation, industrial production, and everyday use of synthetic materials and cosmetics. The authors highlight microplastics' capacity to cross biological barriers, accumulate in tissues, and trigger inflammatory and immune responses in organisms throughout the food chain.
Why is high persistence alone a major cause of concern?
This paper argues that persistence alone — the ability of a chemical to resist degradation in the environment — should be treated as a major hazard concern in chemical regulation, even without established toxicity data. The argument is directly relevant to microplastics, which are highly persistent and accumulate in ecosystems over time.
Plastic
This overview examines the scale of global plastic production and pollution, explaining how 9 million tonnes of plastic enter oceans annually, fragment into microplastics that enter food chains, and allow toxic chemicals including BPA, styrene, and PCBs to bioaccumulate up to humans.
Microplastic Pollution in the Environment
This review examines the ubiquitous presence of microplastics as emerging environmental pollutants across all major environmental compartments, synthesizing data on their sources, fates, and concentrations over time and space to characterize the scale of global contamination.
Problematic issues of the impact of microplastics on the human body and the environment: A review
This review covers the current state of knowledge on how microplastics -- highly resistant artificial polymers -- affect human health and the environment, summarizing contamination pathways, toxicological effects, and the challenges of their slow decomposition. The authors highlight significant knowledge gaps and call for better monitoring and regulatory frameworks to address the growing microplastic problem.
The proliferation of plastics
This introductory book chapter traces the development of modern polymers and the growth of global plastics production during the 20th century, examining the social and industrial factors that shaped humanity's relationship with plastics. It establishes foundational definitions for microplastic size categories, morphologies, and pollution sources that inform the broader text.
Degradation and Recycling of Polymer Materials
This review synthesizes research on the degradation and recycling of polymer materials, covering microplastic formation, recycling strategies, and plastic degradation mechanisms as responses to the significant environmental damage caused by discarded plastics in ocean and other ecosystems.
Environmental risk, toxicity, and biodegradation of polyethylene: a review.
This review covers the environmental persistence, toxicity, and potential biodegradation of polyethylene — one of the world's most widely produced plastics. Because polyethylene does not biodegrade, it persists for decades and breaks into microplastics that accumulate in soil, water, and living organisms, with documented toxic effects across multiple species.
Driver, Trends and Fate of Plastics and Micro Plastics Occurrence in the Environment
This review examines the sources, trends, and environmental fate of plastics and microplastics, which have become a major global pollution problem due to massive production and poor waste management. Understanding how plastics move through the environment is essential for designing effective pollution controls.
Plastic Pollution
This book chapter provides a broad overview of plastic pollution, covering the scale of global plastic production, why plastics persist in the environment for centuries, and the various physical and biological approaches being explored to break plastics down. It gives particular attention to microbial degradation as a promising strategy for plastic bioremediation in soil and water environments. The chapter serves as a useful introduction to the plastic pollution problem and the emerging science of using microorganisms to tackle it.
The plastic in microplastics: A review
This review examined the chemical composition and diversity of plastics that become microplastics, summarizing the types of polymers found in the environment and their relevance for understanding ecological and health impacts.
Impact of Microplastics in Day to Day Life
This review provides an overview of how microplastics are formed from degrading larger plastic items and how they affect living organisms through ingestion, inflammation, and chemical toxicity. The authors summarize routes of human exposure through food, water, and air and call for urgent policy action to reduce plastic production. The paper is aimed at communicating the scope of the microplastics problem to a broad scientific audience.
Plastic as a Persistent Marine Pollutant
This paper argues that mismanaged plastic waste should be considered a persistent pollutant similar to DDT or PCBs, given its durability, accumulation in organisms and sediments, and growing evidence of toxicity. Researchers highlight that millions of metric tons of plastic enter the ocean each year, where it is virtually impossible to remove and persists far longer than on land. The study calls for a Global Convention on Plastic Pollution to coordinate solutions among governments, industry, scientists, and citizens.