Microplastics as a “Contaminant of Emerging Concern”

Waste Management
Student’s Name
Institutions
Question 1
Microplastics as a “Contaminant of Emerging Concern”
The dependence on plastic since the 20th century has grown exponentially due to its durability, versatility, and affordability. Shocking statistics on the prevalence of plastic use have been established, and the ubiquity of plastic wastes has been on a worrying trend, to the extent of being recognized as an indication of the Anthropocene era (Wagner & Lambert, 2018). Slightly over eight trillion tonnes of plastic have been produced from the mid 20th century, with a huge chunk ending up on the landfill (Gourmelon, 2015). What makes it even worse are the single-use plastic materials that are produced in larger percentages. The very same advantages that come along with the use of plastics are its affordability and durability, which play a significant role in ruining the environment. Plastics take as long as four centuries to become biodegradable (Gourmelon, 2015). The world is not doing enough in managing plastic pollutants, with as little as 9% of produced plastic recycled annually (Gourmelon, 2015). The plastic detritus familiar to many are those that are tangible and utterly visible. A new class of plastic products, microplastics (MPs), as tiny as 100 nanometers (Wagner & Lambert, 2018), have raised a lot of concern among environmental enthusiasts because they were initially not projected as apparent pollutants, and also the level of production was negligible.
Sources of Microplastics
Industrial products that are produced for domestic use, such as pharmaceutical drugs, personal care products (Romanok et al., 2020), and even food products (Vaughan, 2019), have been identified to be present in the environment although in manageable volume, and are collectively referred to as Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CECs) (Wagner & Lambert, 2018). In addition to the chemical compounds from domestics products, microplastics from numerous sources also qualify to be classified as CEC. MPs are further classified into two categories: primary and secondary, representing the manufactured tiny pieces of plastic added to domestic substances and those that emanate from degrading plastic materials, respectively (Wagner & Lambert, 2018). Primary MPs can as well be termed as microbeads and are usually present in domestic products such as toothpaste. High temperatures on plastic products also contribute to high volumes of microplastic. Other well-known sources of MPs include microfibers from synthetic garments wear and tear from automobile tires, among others (Napper & Thompson, 2016). More shocking revelations indicate that some freshwater amphipods are capable of accelerating the fragmentation of plastics into even more minute sizes (Mateos-Cárdenas et al., 2020).
Pervasiveness of Microplastics
The numerous sources of MPs warrant for concern and the classification as CECs. A more worrying trend on the MPs is how they are capable of being transferred from one ecosystem to the other. Rivers and water streams are the superspreaders of MPs, both on land and to the water bodies (Baztan et al., 2016). The MPs and some nano plastics end up being consumed by the aquatic animals that are t...