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

Abstract

Microplastics in the environment can absorb and interact with organic pollutants, altering their toxic effects and making microplastics more difficult to treat. Previous reports have focused on the source, distribution and ecotoxicity of microplastics in different environmental substrates. Microplastics come from two main sources: (1) a significant direct input of primary microplastics (2) secondary microplastics resulting from the fragmentation of larger plastic materials. Microplastics can migrate through atmospheric, freshwater, marine and terrestrial environments. To investigate, uniform methods for monitoring and examining microplastics will be developed and combined with source tracking technologies to research their environmental impact. Microplastics (including additives) can be inadvertently ingested by organisms, and cause physical damage, a wide range of biological, physiological behaviors and molecular effects. Microplastics can present combined toxicity to the organism due to its role as a vector of chemical pollutants in ecosystems. Moreover, key recommendations are made for future research, and we call for additional efforts to focus on the occurrence and fate of microplastics in terrestrial environments, particularly in the atmosphere and soil, and to further investigate the mechanisms of microplastic toxicity.