Weathering Plastics as a Planetary Boundary Threat: Exposure, Fate, and Hazards

2021/05/11 by Hans Peter H. Arp, Dana Kühnel, Christoph Rummel +8 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Environmental Science · #Microplastics and Plastic Pollution #Recycling and Waste Management Techniques

paper · doi:10.1021/acs.est.1c01512

openalex publication_date 2021/05/11 · openalex created_date 2021/05/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02

Abstract

and their thresholds. We provide evidence that the third criterion could be fulfilled for weathering plastics in sensitive environments and therefore conclude that weathering plastics pose a planetary boundary threat. We suggest future research priorities to better understand (eco)toxicological hazards modulated by increasing exposure and continuous weathering processes, to better parametrize the planetary boundary threshold for plastic pollution.

Citations

• Degradation Rates of Plastics in the Environment
• Reporting Guidelines to Increase the Reproducibility and Comparability of Research on Microplastics
• Evaluating scenarios toward zero plastic pollution
• The global threat from plastic pollution

Cited by

• A just world on a safe planet: a Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations

Discussions

• The key conclusion of our new @EnvSciTech paper? Plastic in the enviornment has all the properties of a novel entity planetary boundary threat. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c01512 Thanks to @ha [bsky, 0 points, 1 comments]