Microplastics in soils: Analytical methods, pollution characteristics and ecological risks

ToF‐SIMS characterization of microplastics in soils

“…It can be seen that PP in soil may have relatively smaller particle size, which is presumed to be unstable in soil and easy to break and decompose, thus gradually forming microplastics or even nano‐scale microplastics. Smaller microplastics (μm grade) easily absorb organic pollutants (such as organochlorine pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and their derivatives) in soil and are more likely to enter biological tissues and even cells . Therefore, in the future, more attention must be given to PP, which is abundant and results in finer microplastics.…”

“…Smaller microplastics (μm grade) easily absorb organic pollutants (such as organochlorine pesticides, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and their derivatives) in soil and are more likely to enter biological tissues and even cells. [40][41][42][43][44][45] Therefore, in the future, more attention must be given to PP, which is abundant and results in finer microplastics. respectively.…”

Towards an ecology of soil microplastics

“…Concern over microplastics in the world's soils has grown as recent studies have found them both prevalent and potentially harmful to living organisms (Chae & An, ; He et al, ; Ng et al, ) just as they are in marine environments (Galloway & Lewis, ; Ivar do Sul & Costa, ). Microplastics are defined as plastic particles with diameters under 5 mm (Hidalgo‐Ruz, Gutow, Thompson, & Thiel, ), with particles under 0.1–1 µm in diameter often called nanoplastics (Gigault et al, ).…”

“…Despite their recent entry into the microplastic literature, soils may be even more prone to such pollution than oceans, due to greater estimated release of plastic to terrestrial systems (Horton, Walton, Spurgeon, Lahive, & Svendsen, ). Indeed, microplastics are often more abundant in soils than in ocean waters on a mass/mass or particles/mass basis (He et al, ; Rezania et al, ); the world's agricultural soils alone could hold more microplastic mass than oceanic surface waters (Nizzetto, Futter, & Langaas, ). That said, to assume a given w/w microplastic concentration in soil has the same ecological effect or indicates the same level of environmental harm as that concentration in seawater is likely unwise.…”

“…Past reviews on microplastics in soil (Bläsing & Amelung, 2018;Chae & An, 2018;de Souza Machado, Kloas, Zarfl, Hempel, & Rillig, 2018;He et al, 2018;Ng et al, 2018;Zhu et al, 2019), of which there have been many for such a recent field ( Figure 2), have focused primarily on microplastic occurrence and abundance in terrestrial environments, sources of soil microplastics, methods for their extraction and quantification, and their ecotoxicological effects on soil organisms and communities. We chose to focus on the role of ecology in governing the occurrence, distribution and ultimate impacts of microplastics in soil: in other words, on ecological effects on microplastics in addition to those of microplastics.…”