| Résumé : |
Over the last twenty years or so, the world has belatedly become more onscious of, and more concerned about, the plastic pollution found in the environment. We have all seen landscapes filled with plastic debris, distressing pictures of mammals and birds trapped in plastic waste, or heard reports of plastic waste found inside creatures, having caused their death. It is no surprise that surveys of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems have found not only large plastic items, but also microplastic particles, and these may be just as dangerous to organisms as the larger pieces. Microplastics, however you wish to define them by size, can be ingested by a wide range of creatures ranging from the smallest invertebrates (microinvertebrates in soit, such as nematodes, rotifers and water bears, less than 0.1 mm in size) to large mammals. There will be no plastic particles so small that will not likely endanger or affect some size of organism. Even the smallest plastic particles can potentially affect large mammals (including humans) as a result of the food chain and the build-up of larger concentrations of plastic particles. But the problem is potentially worse than just the polynner particles : many plastics contain additives that can leach out and affect organisms in, at present, largely unknown ways.
There is a readable explanation of'how soit invertebrates deal with microplastic contamination'', which gives a balanced account of our current understanding of the effects of microplastics on soit organisms. There is evidence that microplastics cause several health problems for earthworms and springtails, leading to slower growth, less offspring and early death after ingestion, but there is also some evidence that suggests bacteria in the guts of certain organisms may speed up the degradation of microplastics in soit. However, the overall impression given in this article and throughout most of the literature on the quantity and effects of microplastics in the environment is that there is not very much known. |
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The trouble with paint microplastics in SURFACE COATINGS INTERNATIONAL, Vol. 105.6 (11-12/2022)
