Microplastic incorporation into soil in agroecosystems

2017

Background: We live in a plastic age (Thompson et al., 2009), with microplastic (typically defined as plastic particles < 5 mm) becoming an increasingly appreciated aspect of environmental pollution. Research has been overwhelmingly focused on aquatic systems, especially the oceans, but there is a current shift to more strongly consider terrestrial ecosystems (Rillig, 2012; Horton et al., 2017). In particular agroecosystems are coming into focus as a major entry point for microplastics in continental systems (Nizzetto et al., 2016b), where contamination might occur via different sources as sludge amendment or plastic mulching (Steinmetz et al., 2016). Given the central role of agroecosystem…