Date

2024

Abstract

It is said that humans generate 2.01 billion tons of municipal waste every year and this number is projected to explode to a massive 3.40 billion tons annually by the year 2050 (Ellis, 2018). This increase in waste production perfectly underscores a growing reliance on materials that persist in ecosystems long-term. This contamination, generated from large-scale industrial practices to doing your laundry at home, is best exemplified by the proliferation of microplastics throughout the environment.

What are microplastics? The first documented use of the term microplastics can be traced to a 1990 publication in the South African Journal of Science article titled “Plastic and other artefacts on South African beaches: Temporal trends in abundance and composition” by Peter G. Ryan. This publication used the term microplastics as a vague all-encompassing term for small broken plastic particles. This definition was refined over time, and today microplastics are more precisely defined as small plastic particles between 5 mm and 100 nm in size. This category is then broken down into primary and secondary microplastics. Primary microplastics are manufactured in their microplastic form often for use as an exfoliating grit in consumer products like face wash and shampoos.1 Secondary microplastics are formed from the recycling and waste processing of larger plastics through physical, chemical, and biological means.2

Today, the leading industries that have been identified as the greatest contributors to microplastic pollution are the textile, laundry, and agricultural industries as well as the wastewater treatment industry. 3–6 The environmental hazards associated with these industries, compounded by domestic activities such as littering, make up the bulk of microplastic generation.

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