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Embrace complexity to understand microplastic pollution

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 3, pages 736–737 (2022)Cite this article

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Environmental cycling of microplastics and nanoplastics is complex; fully understanding these pollutants is hindered by inconsistent methodologies and experimentation within a narrow scope. Consistent methods are needed to advance plastic research and policy within the context of global environmental change.

Plastics and products of their degradation — microplastics (MPs), nanoplastics (NPs) and their associated chemicals — are transported through ecosystems. MP cycling is complex and incompletely understood owing to analytical barriers and the narrow scope and scale of many experiments. Moreover, plastics pollution is frequently framed as an ecotoxicological or ecosystem health issue, limiting the research questions asked and disciplines engaged in its research. Complexity is a central theme in the plastics pollution cycle. Such system level thinking is critical for policy relevant, source apportionment modelling and regional and global mass balance estimates of plastics pollution across relevant spatial and temporal scales.

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Fig. 1: Plastic pollution and GEC.

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Acknowledgements

This manuscript was developed as part of the ‘Plastics and Sustainability Nature Forum’. MSB acknowledges the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway, for funding received under the Ocean Health Strategic Institute program (project no. 15494). DMM acknowledges the Swiss National Science Foundation, grant numbers PZ00P2_168105 and PCEFP2_186856. MCR acknowledges funding from an ERC Advanced Grant, and from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the projects μPlastic and BIBS, and EU funding for the projects PAPILLONS and MINAGRIS. CSKL acknowledges funding from the Hong Kong Research Grant Council via Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) account C1105-20G. YSO was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant (no. 2021R1A2C2011734) and the OJEong Resilience Institute (OJERI) Research Grant from the OJERI, Korea University, Republic of Korea. We thank Dr. Anika Lehmann for designing Fig. 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway

    Michael S. Bank

  2. University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA

    Michael S. Bank

  3. Environmental Systems Science Department, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Denise M. Mitrano

  4. Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Biology, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias C. Rillig

  5. Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Berlin, Germany

    Matthias C. Rillig

  6. School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

    Carol Sze Ki Lin

  7. Korea Biochar Research Center, Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) Sustainable Waste Management Program & Division of Environmental Science and Ecological Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea

    Yong Sik Ok

  8. Green Manufacturing Research Center (GMRC), College of Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea

    Yong Sik Ok

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  1. Michael S. Bank
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  2. Denise M. Mitrano
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  3. Matthias C. Rillig
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  4. Carol Sze Ki Lin
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Correspondence to Michael S. Bank.

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Bank, M.S., Mitrano, D.M., Rillig, M.C. et al. Embrace complexity to understand microplastic pollution. Nat Rev Earth Environ 3, 736–737 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00365-x

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