Ads
related to: how does plastic become microplastic in the environment pdf book
Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
[1] [2] The pervasive presence of plastics in our environment has raised concerns about their long-term impacts on human health. While visible pollution caused by larger plastic items is well-documented, the hidden threat posed by NPs remains under-explored.
Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles (e.g. plastic bottles, bags and microbeads) in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. [1] [2] Plastics that act as pollutants are categorized by size into micro-, meso-, or macro debris. [3]
A big portion of microplastic pollution comes from textiles, tires and city dust [56] which account for over 80% of all microplastic in the seas and the environment. [12] Microplastic is also a type of airborne particulates and is found to prevail in air. [57] [58] [59]
As of January 2019, the Oxford English Dictionary did not include the terms plastic soup, neuston plastic or neustonic plastic, but it defined the term microplastic (or micro-plastic) as "Extremely small pieces of plastic, manufactured as such (in the form of nurdles or microbeads) or resulting from the disposal and breakdown of plastic ...
A more recent concern in microplastic pollution is the use of plastic films in agriculture. 7.4 million tons of plastic film are used each year to increase food production. [22] Scientists have found that microbial biofilms can form within 7–14 days on plastic film surfaces, and have the ability to alter the chemical properties of the soil ...
Like microbeads, preproduction plastic pellets can be released directly into the environment as a form of primary microplastic pollution. [9] As more plastic is being produced, more plastic pellets are being deposited in waterways. [10] A study on a polyethylene production facility in Sweden found that between 3 and 36 million plastic pellets ...
A plastic handle from a kitchen utensil, deformed by heat and partially melted. One important classification of plastics is the degree to which the chemical processes used to make them are reversible or not. Thermoplastics do not undergo chemical change in their composition when heated and thus can be molded repeatedly.
Thompson's paper, Lost at Sea: Where is All the Plastic?, [4] published in the journal Science in 2004, was the first to use the term microplastics, which has since become common parlance. [5] [6] [7] Since 2010 he has been professor of Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth. [8]