Organic fertilizer as a vehicle for the entry of microplastic into the environment

By Nicolas Weithmann, Julia N. Möller, Martin G. J. Löder, Sarah Piehl, Christian Laforsch, R. Freitag. Science Advances, 2018

849 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Organic fertilizer from recycled biowaste was identified as a vehicle for entry of microplastic particles into the environment. The contamination of the environment with microplastic, defined as particles smaller than 5 mm, has emerged as a global challenge because it may pose risks to biota and public health. Current research focuses predominantly on aquatic systems, whereas comparatively little is known regarding the sources, pathways, and possible accumulation of plastic particles in terrestrial ecosystems. We investigated the potential of organic fertilizers from biowaste fermentation and composting as an entry path for microplastic particles into the environment. Particles were classified by size and identified by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. All fertilizer samples from plants converting biowaste contained plastic particles, but amounts differed significantly with substrate pretreatment, plant, and waste (for example, household versus commerce) type. In contrast, digestates from agricultural energy crop digesters tested for comparison contained only isolated particles, if any. Among the most abundant synthetic polymers observed were those used for common consumer products. Our results indicate that depending on pretreatment, organic fertilizers from biowaste fermentation and composting, as applied in agriculture and gardening worldwide, are a neglected source of microplastic in the environment.

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/79768c9dfb86c40a868f13bc345ddd0973b72ac5

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Citations in the corpus

New strategy for microplastic degradation: Green photocatalysis using a protein-based porous N-TiO2 semiconductor (2019, background): “However, the presence of significant proportions of PE micro-debris (< 5mm) has attracted particular attention due to the physical damage that poses to marine biota and the increasing hazard that represents to public health [12].”
Consolidating the current knowledge on urban agriculture in productive urban food systems: Learnings, gaps and outlook (2019, background): “For example, one potential hazard of utilizing organic waste streams in urban environments is microplastics that enter the food web, especially from commercial sources (Weithmann et al., 2018).”
A Global Perspective on Microplastics (2020, background): “Weithmann et al. (2018) observed that composts derived from household and commercial sources contained up to 895 microplastics kg−1.”