Development and application of tests for microplastic detection in soil
Abstract
Plastics serve as versatile and malleable matrices that manufactures can easily manipulate in an effort to develop new technologies to benefit society. These new technologies allow manufacturers to produce products that customers can use either a single time or for more than 50 years. Due to its great versatility, industries across all sectors use plastic at some point during the production process or include plastic in the final products. This great versatility comes with a high demand and use of plastic. This produces a complex scenario with regards to plastic disposal. According to the best educated guess, nearly 24 million tonnes of plastics that were improperly disposed of ended up in terrestrial ecosystems in 2010 alone. Since then, human demand for plastics and plastic consumption have steadily risen and increased to roughly 4 times what they were in 2010 (they reached 51.2 million tonnes in 2018). The implication reads: pollution and the transfer of plastics to ecosystems have worsened over the last 10 years.Large plastic chunks threaten the environment mainly through direct ingestion by wildlife. Smaller plastics measuring less than 0.5cm threaten the environment not only by their inherent toxicity but also by transporting other pollutants as they themselves move through the soil to other sites. Scientists named these smaller plastic pieces microplastics. Because microplastics constitute a potential threat to soil biota and water or wind might spread them through…
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