Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Understanding and Mitigating the Toxic Impacts of Microplastic Pollution on Environmental Health

This review covers the sources, types, and ecological impacts of microplastics as environmental contaminants, examining how polymer-specific properties such as chemical additives affect toxicity across ecosystems and discussing mitigation approaches including physical and chemical remediation.

2025 JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT AND BIO-SCIENCE
Article Tier 2

Microplastic Pollution

This review explains how microplastics carry two types of chemical threats: additives built into the plastic during manufacturing and pollutants like heavy metals that stick to plastic surfaces in the environment. With up to 16,000 chemicals potentially added to plastics during production, many of known toxicity, microplastics act as tiny vehicles delivering harmful substances to organisms that ingest them.

2025 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Les additifs issus des microplastiques : caractérisation, lixiviation et impacts

This review characterizes plastic additives leaching from microplastics into the environment, examining their physicochemical properties, leaching behavior, and biological impacts, and surveying the growing evidence that many plastic additives are toxic to organisms including marine wildlife and humans.

2022 theses.fr (ABES)
Article Tier 2

Chemical and ecotoxicological assessment of microplastics and emerging risks in the coastal environments

This review examines the chemical composition of microplastics found in coastal environments and assesses their ecotoxicological risks, including the leaching of plastic additives and adsorption of environmental pollutants. It emphasizes the need for better risk assessment frameworks that account for both the particles and their associated chemical contaminants.

2020 Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona) 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Estimating the Mass of Chemicals Associated with Ocean Plastic Pollution to Inform Mitigation Efforts

Researchers estimated the mass of chemicals associated with ocean plastic pollution—including plastic additives that leach out and pollutants that adsorb onto plastic surfaces. The total chemical burden from ocean plastics is substantial, adding a chemical pollution dimension to the physical microplastic problem.

2019 Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management 62 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic additives and microplastics as emerging contaminants: Mechanisms and analytical assessment

Researchers reviewed how chemical additives mixed into plastics during manufacturing — including stabilizers, flame retardants, and plasticizers — can leach out throughout a plastic's lifecycle and pose risks to ecosystems and human health, with microplastics acting as carriers that concentrate and transport these hazardous chemicals.

2022 TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry 194 citations
Article Tier 2

Toxic Chemicals and Persistent Organic Pollutants Associated with Micro-and Nanoplastics Pollution

Researchers reviewed how micro- and nanoplastics act as carriers for toxic chemical additives and persistent organic pollutants — like flame retardants and pesticides — making these contaminants more available and harmful once they enter food chains and human bodies. The review identifies major gaps in understanding how these chemicals detach from plastic particles inside living organisms and what health effects they cause.

2022 Chemical Engineering Journal Advances 218 citations
Article Tier 2

Aquatic toxicity of chemically defined microplastics can be explained by functional additives

Researchers manufactured microplastics from four polymer types with precisely defined chemical compositions, including different additive formulations, and tested their toxicity to aquatic organisms. They found that the toxic effects of microplastics could largely be explained by the functional additives they contained rather than the base polymer itself. The study suggests that the chemical additives in plastics, not just the plastic material, are a primary driver of microplastic toxicity in aquatic environments.

2020 Journal of Hazardous Materials 151 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic in marine organism: Environmental and toxicological effects

This review examined microplastics as a complex mixture of polymers, additives, and adsorbed environmental contaminants, and assessed their toxicological effects on marine organisms from ingestion and internal distribution. The authors emphasize that microplastic harm comes not only from the plastic itself but from the chemical cocktail it carries, and review the growing evidence for food web transfer.

2018 Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology 756 citations
Article Tier 2

Toxicity of plastic consumer products: a biological, chemical and social-ecological analysis

This study analyzed the toxic chemicals found in consumer plastic products, including additives, monomers, and processing by-products that can leach into food or the environment. The findings highlight that plastic toxicity extends beyond microplastic particles themselves — the chemicals embedded in plastics pose significant health risks through food packaging and environmental contamination.

2021
Article Tier 2

(Micro)Plastics Are Toxic Pollutants

This review argues that microplastics should be considered toxic pollutants rather than merely physical hazards, citing evidence that they contain toxic chemicals within their structure and adsorb additional contaminants like PCBs, pesticides, and heavy metals from the environment. The study highlights research showing these chemicals can leach into the tissues of organisms that ingest microplastics, potentially causing harmful biological effects.

2023 Toxics 44 citations
Article Tier 2

A review on the combined toxicological effects of microplastics and their attached pollutants

Researchers reviewed how microplastics act as carriers for other environmental pollutants — including heavy metals and persistent organic chemicals — and how these combinations produce toxic effects in organisms that are more severe than either contaminant alone. The findings highlight a complex, layered toxicity problem that affects microbes, invertebrates, and vertebrates across marine and terrestrial environments.

2025 Emerging contaminants 20 citations
Article Tier 2

Ecological Impacts of Microplastics and Their Additives

This comprehensive review examines how microplastics and their chemical additives cause ecological harm, covering exposure risks, toxicity pathways, and the transport of persistent toxic substances through ecosystems. Microplastics act as carriers for harmful chemicals that can accumulate in organisms and travel up the food chain toward humans. The review emphasizes that understanding the full life cycle of microplastics, from production to environmental breakdown, is essential for assessing risks to both ecosystems and human health.

2025 7 citations
Review Tier 2

A Detailed Review Study on Potential Effects of Microplastics and Additives of Concern on Human Health

This detailed review examines the potential health effects of microplastics and the chemical additives they contain, which can include plasticizers, flame retardants, and stabilizers. Researchers describe how humans are exposed to these hazardous chemicals through ingestion, inhalation, and skin contact as microplastics break down in the environment. The study emphasizes that the combination of physical particle effects and chemical toxicity makes microplastics a uniquely complex health concern.

2020 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 1763 citations
Article Tier 2

Interaction of toxic chemicals with microplastics: A critical review

This critical review examined how toxic chemicals interact with microplastics in the environment, synthesizing evidence on adsorption, desorption, and the conditions under which microplastics either increase or decrease the bioavailability of co-occurring pollutants.

2018 Water Research 875 citations
Article Tier 2

Is plastic debris toxic ?

This work examines the toxicity of plastic debris, reviewing evidence on the chemical and physical harm posed by plastic particles and their associated contaminants to biological systems. The publication is part of the international scientific literature assessing whether plastic pollution constitutes a direct toxic hazard.

2024 SPIRE - Sciences Po Institutional REpository
Article Tier 2

New insights in to the environmental behavior and ecological toxicity of microplastics

This review provides new insights into how microplastics behave in the environment and their toxic effects on living organisms. Microplastics can absorb and carry other pollutants, making them more dangerous than the plastic alone, and their effects vary based on size, shape, and chemical composition. The review highlights that smaller particles, especially nanoplastics, pose the greatest risk because they can cross biological barriers and enter cells.

2023 Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances 80 citations
Article Tier 2

The polymers and their additives in particulate plastics: What makes them hazardous to the fauna?

This review argues that microplastics should not be treated as a single category because different plastic types have very different chemical properties and health risks. Each polymer carries its own set of chemical additives like flame retardants, plasticizers, and stabilizers, which can leach out and cause additional harm to organisms. Understanding the specific dangers of each plastic type and its additives is essential for accurately assessing the true health risks of microplastic exposure.

2022 The Science of The Total Environment 207 citations
Article Tier 2

The toxicity of microplastics and its impact on marine organisms

This review essay summarizes the known toxic effects of microplastics on marine organisms, covering physical damage to the gastrointestinal tract, endocrine disruption from leached additives, and chemical harm from sorbed contaminants. The exact effects vary greatly depending on the organism, plastic type, associated chemicals, and environmental conditions.

2015
Article Tier 2

Microplastics as a Vector of Hazardous Contaminants: Plastic Chemicals, Digestive Physiology and the Need for Chemical Simplification

This review explored how microplastics serve as vectors for hazardous chemicals, distinguishing between plastic-associated chemicals added during manufacturing and environmental pollutants adsorbed onto particle surfaces. The authors argue that the chemical burden of ingested microplastics warrants much more rigorous toxicological assessment.

2025
Article Tier 2

Disentangling the influence of microplastics and their chemical additives on a model detritivore system

Researchers disentangled the physical and chemical effects of microplastics on freshwater detritivores, finding that chemical additives leaching from plastics contributed more to negative impacts on organisms than the polymer particles themselves.

2022 Environmental Pollution 27 citations
Article Tier 2

The Toxicity of Plastics

This review synthesized over 200 studies on plastic toxicity, examining the physical, chemical, and biological threats posed by macro- and microplastics to ecosystems and human health, including their ability to cross biological barriers and carry chemical contaminants.

2023 IntechOpen eBooks 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Multiple Effects, Pathways, and Potential Health Risks from Environmental Microplastic Exposure

This review synthesizes nearly two decades of research on the multiple pathways through which environmental microplastics affect human and ecological health, including chemical toxicity, physical impacts, and potential roles as carriers of pathogens and contaminants.

2025 Toxics
Article Tier 2

Microplastic: Its Effect on Human Health

This review outlines how microplastics from single-use packaging, bottles, and consumer goods enter the food chain through ingestion and inhalation, serving as carriers for toxic chemical additives and adsorbed pollutants that pose risks to human health.

2023 Asian Journal of Microbiology Biotechnology and Environmental Sciences 1 citations