Microplastics Contamination in the Environment: An Ecotoxicological Concern

Abstract

The accumulation of plastic products in the terrestrial and aquatic environment is one of the major concerns in recent years. The quality of the ecosystem is affected globally due to the large production, ubiquitous usage, and poor plastic waste disposal. Plastic debris is categorized based on its size as macroplastics, mesoplastics, microplastics, and nanoplastics, respectively. Microplastics are the emerging contaminant that occurs in varying shapes like tiny beads, spheres, films, fragments, fibres, and filaments. The use of microplastics in cosmetics and abrasion from large plastic items including textile fibres and tyres are suspected to contaminate the environment when it reaches the aquatic ecosystem. Indian coastal waters are polluted by microplastics owing to industrialization, overpopulation, tourist and maritime activities. Many species of fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals are directly threatened by entanglement or ingestion, and some marine mammals consume a large amount of microplastic debris by raptorial feeding thereby leads to trophic transfer. Humans are considered as the most exposed organisms than other vertebrates as they occupy at the top of the food chain. Certain government legislations have been put forth to ban some products that are considered as the major contributor to plastic debris. Recently, the use of bioplastics is increased all over the world to replace microplastics in industrial and commercial products. However, there is little awareness of the microplastic pollutants among the public, thus the main motive of this review is to provide public awareness and responsibility to limit the use of plastics that adversely damage our environment