Microplastic contamination refers to the presence and distribution of synthetic polymer particles typically <5 mm in environmental matrices, including marine, freshwater, terrestrial, atmospheric, and biological systems. As a research topic, it encompasses sources (primary and secondary microplastics), transport pathways (e.g., hydrodynamic and atmospheric dispersion), physicochemical properties (size, shape, polymer type, surface chemistry), and interactions with co-contaminants such as persistent organic pollutants and metals. Studies investigate bioavailability, trophic transfer, organismal and cellular responses, and potential human exposure via inhalation and ingestion, as well as methodological challenges in sampling, analytical detection, quantification, and risk assessment frameworks.
Plastics are not inert: they gradually break into fragments over time, forming micro- and then nanoplastics (i.e., particles
Bio & Medicine
Dec 22, 2025
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Scientists are urging governments to act immediately on plastic pollution, warning that waiting for a binding Global Plastics Treaty could mean years of damaging delay while plastic waste continues to accelerate worldwide.
Environment
Dec 20, 2025
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220
Just when we thought we had described all the possible marine environmental recipients of plastic pollution, new research comes in to overturn the picture.
A research team at the University of Bayreuth has experimentally investigated how the popular climbing discipline of bouldering affects vegetation and the surface structure of natural rock formations. In their recently published ...
Ecology
Dec 17, 2025
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23
New research has found that Fiddler crabs are playing an unheralded role when it comes to hoovering up microplastics found in the world's mangrove forests and salt marshes.
Ecology
Dec 17, 2025
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Tropical storms such as typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones are Earth's most powerful weather systems. Born over warm oceans, they travel thousands of kilometers to land, traversing waters now polluted with plastics, from ...
A new study by the University of Portsmouth shows that plastic items make up more than seven in ten pieces of litter recorded across the UK, with countryside locations and public recreation areas carrying some of the heaviest ...
Environment
Dec 11, 2025
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21
A global research team led by researchers from the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment has found that Antarctica's only native insect is already ingesting microplastics, even ...
Environment
Dec 9, 2025
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229
The ocean is saturated with microplastics. While we know the location of the great garbage patches, where plastic particles may accumulate below the ocean surface remains unknown. The vastness of the ocean means particle ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 9, 2025
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17
The carbon cycle in our oceans is critical to the balance of life in ocean waters and for reducing carbon in the atmosphere, a significant process to curbing climate change or global warming.
Earth Sciences
Dec 5, 2025
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