Ending plastic pollution

Climate change and plastic pollution are interconnected global challenges. Rising temperatures and moisture alter plastic characteristics, contributing to waste, microplastic generation, and release of hazardous substances. Urgent attention is essential to comprehend and address these climate-driven effects and their consequences.

Airborne microplastics (MPs) are observed over the Southern Ocean and Antarctica. MPs morphology is the primary factor influencing the hemispheric transport to these remote areas that may suffer increased pollution from urbanized, land-based sources.

Modelling of riverine plastic exports finds microplastics dominate in areas with many sewage systems and macroplastics where waste is mismanaged. In some areas both plastics are important. Reduction at source is needed.

Microplastics the marine atmosphere are a highly relevant subject, yet barely investigated. This study showed their ubiquity in the nanogram range even in remote Artic regions and depict the ocean acts as both a sink and source for microplastics

Estimating the amount of plastics that enters the ocean is subject to significant uncertainty. This study uses ocean plastic abundance data to refine our estimate and reduce this uncertainty, enabling more effective control and mitigation polices.

Microplastic concentrations in agricultural soils increased at higher rates between 1966 and 2022 when farm manure and inorganic fertilizers were added than when soils were not amended, suggests an analysis of soil samples from the Broadbalk winter wheat experiment in the United Kingdom.

The distribution of microplastics in the Eurasian Arctic is controlled by contributions from the Siberian rivers as well as the Atlantic, according to analyses of surface and subsurface water samples.

Microplastic uptake by animals is often assumed to reflect the level of contamination in the environment. Here, the authors compile a global inventory of individual microplastic body burden in benthic marine invertebrates and find that feeding mode and geographic location are more important predictors than environmental microplastic loading.

Petrels are wide-ranging, highly threatened seabirds that often ingest plastic. This study used tracking data for 7,137 petrels of 77 species to map global exposure risk and compare regions, species, and populations. The results show higher exposure risk for threatened species and stress the need for international cooperation to tackle marine litter.

Progress to reduce plastic pollution has been painfully slow and the consequent damage to the natural environment and to human health is likely to increase further. This has been because the views and ways of working of four distinct stakeholder communities are not sufficiently well integrated. (1) Scientists, (2) industry, (3) society at large and (4) those making policy and legislation must in future find ways to work together.

Plastics need to be used more sustainably in agricultural practice, for example by recovery and reuse, and by selected application of safe biodegradable plastics and phasing out of toxic additives, suggests a literature synthesis and perspective on structural polymers in agriculture.