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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Introduction to Part II
ClearThe Invisible Threat
This chapter presents microplastics as an invisible environmental and health threat, summarizing contamination across environmental matrices and human exposure pathways. The text is aimed at a broad scientific audience and emphasizes the urgency of addressing plastic pollution before its consequences become irreversible.
Introduction
This chapter provides an introduction to a broader research volume or report on microplastics, framing the scope, significance, and structure of the collection for readers approaching the topic for the first time.
Understanding the Risks of Microplastics: A Social-Ecological Risk Perspective
This chapter examines microplastics as a textbook example of a modern global risk — produced by everyday industrial society, distributed worldwide by ocean currents, and difficult to regulate because the harm is diffuse and slow. The authors analyze scientific, social, and political dimensions of microplastic risk, arguing that policy responses like the US Microbead-Free Waters Act address symptoms rather than the underlying systemic problem.
Toxicological aspects of wastewater
This textbook chapter is not about microplastics specifically; it provides a broad review of environmental toxicology topics including climate change, water and air pollution, and industrial contaminants, with microplastics mentioned only as one of many pollutants.
Introduction: Avowing Fragility
Despite its title referencing fragility, this paper is a work of philosophy and social theory examining how contemporary academia approaches questions of environmental uncertainty and modernity — not microplastic pollution. It discusses concepts from Husserl, Wittgenstein, and sociological theorists and is entirely unrelated to microplastics or human health.
How to do things in the Plasticene: Ontopolitics of plastics in Arendt, Barthes, and Massumi
This humanities paper analyzes plastic as a cultural and philosophical object in the current geological era using the frameworks of Hannah Arendt, Roland Barthes, and Brian Massumi. It argues that plastic has become so embedded in modern life as to be nearly invisible and unthinkable, which contributes to difficulty in addressing plastic pollution.
Introduction eating beside ourselves
This academic introduction to a book chapter examines eating as a cultural and biological threshold between self and environment. This is a humanities and food studies paper with no direct connection to microplastics research.
The Existence of Microplastics as an Emerging Concern in Daily Routines and the Implications of Global Mitigation Efforts
This chapter examines the emergence of microplastics as a growing concern embedded in daily human routines and evaluates global mitigation efforts underway to address this pervasive pollutant. Contributing to an Indonesian post-pandemic outlook volume, the piece situates microplastic pollution within broader environmental governance challenges and assesses the adequacy of current international and national response strategies.
Preface
This is a preface to a book on microplastics in water and wastewater, providing context for the collection of chapters that examine plastic contamination across the human water cycle from production to disposal.
Living in the Plastic Age
This interdisciplinary work examines plastic pollution from societal and environmental perspectives, arguing that ubiquitous plastic waste and its conversion to microplastics has become so pervasive in shaping human-nature relationships that it defines a distinct 'Plastic Age,' and exploring implications for human health and pathways toward systemic change.
Our life with plastic, a review of plastic product abuse in the age of consumerism
This review examines the psychology, sociology, and culture of plastic consumerism alongside the scientific evidence for microplastic health harms, arguing that social sciences should complement natural science research by promoting rational product choices and awareness.
Framing pollution
This social science analysis explores how "pollution" — and microplastics specifically — is defined not just by science but by political, economic, and cultural forces. The paper examines different ways of framing microplastic pollution: as a waste management failure, a consumer behavior problem, or an inevitable product of industrial capitalism, each with different implications for who bears responsibility. It argues that understanding the social and political dimensions of microplastic pollution is essential for developing just and effective responses.
Toxic Legacies and Health Inequalities of the Anthropocene: Perspectives from the Margins
Not relevant to microplastics — this sociological paper uses case studies from Mexico and Italy to analyze how toxic waste dumping and industrial pollution create health inequalities in marginalized communities, without focusing on microplastics.
How plastic is our plastic culture? Reducing our consumption of single-use plastics
This paper examines the cultural and economic forces that have made single-use plastics so embedded in modern life, making them difficult to reduce despite known environmental harms. Understanding the social dimensions of plastic consumption — not just technical solutions — is essential for effectively reducing the microplastic pollution they ultimately generate.
Plastics and microplastics in the human water cycle
This introductory book chapter provides an overview of how plastics intersect with the human water cycle, from production and use to eventual environmental pathways. It sets the stage for understanding how microplastics reach drinking water and food.
Microplastics and Nanoplastics in the Environment
This book chapter introduces the growing problem of microplastics and nanoplastics in the environment, covering their origins, distribution, and potential impacts. Plastics have transformed modern life but now accumulate throughout ecosystems and the food chain, raising broad environmental and health concerns that are the subject of rapidly growing scientific investigation.
Next steps for research on society and microplastics
This perspective paper outlined priority directions for social and behavioral science research on microplastics, building on the established contributions of social sciences to understanding policy, stakeholder views, and public behavior around plastic pollution. The authors called for greater integration of social science methods to address governance gaps and support effective microplastic management.
The human dimension: how social and behavioural research methods can help address microplastics in the environment
This paper outlines how social and behavioral science research methods — including surveys, interviews, and behavioral experiments — can be applied to understand human dimensions of the microplastic pollution problem. Addressing plastic pollution requires not just environmental science but also understanding why people produce, use, and dispose of plastics as they do.
Plastiglomerates, Microplastics, Nanoplastics
This essay explores the cultural and ecological meaning of plastic pollution through art and speculative design, examining how plastics have become embedded in every environment including the human body. It argues that understanding plastic as part of a 'dark ecology' is essential for rethinking our relationship with synthetic materials.
Microplastics: Contaminants of Global Concern in the Anthropocene
This review summarizes the state of knowledge on microplastics as a global contaminant, covering their sources, distribution in different environments, and potential ecological and health effects. It frames microplastics as a defining pollution challenge of the Anthropocene era.
From Plastics to Microplastics: Quantification, Degradation and Mitigation
This book chapter reviews how plastics break down into microplastics, the methods used to detect and quantify them, and their environmental impacts including their ability to adsorb and concentrate other pollutants. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the microplastics problem from production to environmental harm.
Superficial or Substantial: Why Care about Microplastics in the Anthropocene?
This viewpoint paper argues that microplastics represent a genuinely significant environmental threat rather than a superficial concern, examining the scientific evidence and social dimensions of the issue. The authors make the case for treating microplastic pollution as a priority environmental challenge in the Anthropocene.
Nano- and microplastics in the environment : presence, effects and their role as a Trojan horse for other pollutants
This thesis reviews the presence and effects of nano- and microplastics in the environment, examining how they act as carriers for other pollutants and discussing their potential health impacts on ecosystems and humans.
Introduction and Book Overview
This book chapter introduces a volume on microplastics in water and wastewater, surveying conventional treatment plant limitations and the multiple pathways by which microplastics enter and persist in terrestrial and aquatic systems. It frames the challenge of complete microplastic removal as a global priority requiring multi-faceted technological solutions.