J Randall Murphy
Trying To Stay Awake
Depressing. I knew it was bad — but not that bad.
A million plastic bottles a minute
- Thread starter nivek
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Depressing. I knew it was bad — but not that bad.
J Randall Murphy
Trying To Stay Awake
nivek
As Above So Below
Plastics are seeping into farm fields, food and eventually human bodies. Can they be stopped?
In Uganda's Mbale district, famous for its production of arabica coffee, a plague of plastic bags locally known as buveera is creeping beyond the city. It's a problem that has long littered the landscape in Kampala, the capital, where buveera are woven into the fabric of daily life. They show up in layers of excavated dirt roads and clog waterways. But now, they can be found in remote areas of farmland, too. Some of the debris includes the thick plastic bags used for planting coffee seeds in nurseries.Some farmers are complaining, said Wilson Watira, head of a cultural board for the coffee-growing Bamasaba people. “They are concerned – those farmers who know the effects of buveera on the land,” he said.
Around the world, plastics find their way into farm fields. Climate change makes agricultural plastic, already a necessity for many crops, even more unavoidable for some farmers. Meanwhile, research continues to show that itty-bitty microplastics alter ecosystems and end up in human bodies. Scientists, farmers and consumers all worry about how that's affecting human health, and many seek solutions. But industry experts say it’s difficult to know where plastic ends up or get rid of it completely, even with the best intentions of reuse and recycling programs.
According to a 2021 report on plastics in agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics. Some studies have estimated that soils are more polluted by microplastics than the oceans.
“These things are being released at such a huge, huge scale that it’s going to require major engineering solutions,” said Sarah Zack, an Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Great Lakes Contaminant Specialist who communicates about microplastics to the public.
Micro-particles of plastic that come from items like clothes, medications and beauty products sometimes appear in fertilizer made from the solid byproducts of wastewater treatment — called biosolids — which can also be smelly and toxic to nearby residents depending on the treatment process used. Some seeds are coated in plastic polymers designed to strategically disintegrate at the right time of the season, used in containers to hold pesticides or stretched over fields to lock in moisture.
But the agriculture industry itself only accounts for a little over three percent of all plastics used globally. About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, including single-use plastic food and beverage containers.
Microplastics, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration defines as being smaller than five millimeters long, are their largest at about the size of a pencil eraser. Some are much smaller.
Studies have already shown that microplastics can be taken up by plants on land or plankton in the ocean and subsequently eaten by animals or humans. Scientists are still studying the long-term effects of the plastic that's been found in human organs, but early findings suggest possible links to a host of health conditions including heart disease and some cancers.
Despite “significant research gaps,” the evidence related to the land-based food chain “is certainly raising alarm,” said Lev Neretin, environment lead at the FAO, which is currently working on another technical report looking deeper into the problem of microplastic pollution in soils and crops.
A study out this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that microplastics pollution can even impact plants' ability to photosynthesize, the process by which they turn light from the sun into energy. That doesn't “justify excessive concern” but does “underscore food security risks that necessitate scientific attention,” wrote Fei Dang, one of the study's authors.
The use of plastics has quadrupled over the past 30 years. Plastic is ubiquitous. And most of the world's plastic goes to landfills, pollutes the environment or is burned. Less than 10% of plastics are recycled.
At the same time, some farmers are becoming more reliant on plastics to shelter crops from the effects of extreme weather. They're using tarps, hoop houses and other technology to try to control conditions for their crops. And they're depending more on chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers to buffer against unreliable weather and more pervasive pest issues.
“Through global warming, we have less and less arable land to make crops on. But we need more crops. So therefore the demand on agricultural chemicals is increasing,” said Ole Rosgaard, president and CEO of Greif, a company that makes packaging used for industrial agriculture products like pesticides and other chemicals.
Extreme weather, fueled by climate change, also contributes to the breakdown and transport of agricultural plastics. Beating sun can wear on materials over time. And more frequent and intense rainfall events in some areas could drive more plastic particles running into fields and eventually waterways, said Maryam Salehi, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Missouri.
This past winter, leaders from around the world gathered in South Korea to produce the first legally binding global treaty on plastics pollution. They didn't reach an agreement, but the negotiations are scheduled to resume in August.
Neretin said the FAO produced a provisional, voluntary code of conduct on sustainable management of plastics in agriculture. But without a formal treaty in place, most countries don't have a strong incentive to follow it.
“The mood is certainly not cheery, that's for sure,” he said, adding global cooperation “takes time, but the problem does not disappear.”
Without political will, much of the onus falls on companies.
Rosgaard, of Greif, said that his company has worked to make their products recyclable, and that farmers have incentives to return them because they can get paid in exchange. But he added it's sometimes hard to prevent people from just burning the plastic or letting it end up in fields or waterways.
“We just don’t know where they end up all the time,” he said.
Some want to stop the flow of plastic and microplastic waste into ecosystems. Boluwatife Olubusoye, a PhD candidate at the University of Mississippi, is trying to see whether biochar, remains of organic matter and plant waste burned under controlled conditions, can filter out microplastics that run from farm fields into waterways. His early experiments have shown promise.
He said he was motivated by the feeling that there was “never any timely solution in terms of plastic waste" ending up in fields in the first place, especially in developing countries.
Even for farmers who care about plastics in soils, it can be challenging for them to do anything about it. In Uganda, owners of nursery beds cannot afford proper seedling trays, so they resort to cheaply made plastic bags used to germinate seeds, said Jacob Ogola, an independent agronomist there.
Farmers hardest hit by climate change are least able to reduce the presence of cheap plastic waste in soils. That frustrates Innocent Piloya, an agroecology entrepreneur who grows coffee in rural Uganda with her company Ribbo Coffee.
"It's like little farmers fighting plastic manufacturers,” she said.
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AD1184
Celestial
AD1184
Celestial
The ‘bombshell’ science that casts doubt on claims about microplastics
Like tobacco and asbestos, these particles have sparked widespread fear. But now experts say the risks may be overstated
nivek
As Above So Below
This High School Student Invented a Filter That Eliminates 96 Percent of Microplastics From Drinking Water
A few years ago, teenager Mia Heller came across an article in her local newspaper about ongoing water quality issues in her neighborhood in Warrington, Virginia. Tests had revealed that the water available for daily consumption was highly contaminated with PFAS and microplastic pollution. The article further reported that government agencies would not be providing any funds for filtering the water.“It was up to people to provide their own filtration,” says Heller.
Not long after the article came out, Heller’s parents invested in an advanced water filtration system at her home. The system, however, required constant upkeep. Seeing her mother replace the water filter membranes time and again, Heller set out to find a better solution. “It inspired me to design a filter without the use of membranes, to decrease the costs and maintenance needs associated with water filtration,” says the now 18-year-old student at Kettle Run High School. Through her school, she also attends a half-day program for math, science and technology at nearby Mountain Vista Governor’s School.
The Environmental Protection Agency defines microplastics as small particles measuring about 1 nanometer to 5 millimeters in size. These tiny particles pose a growing global concern as they infiltrate not just the environment but also humans and animals. “Microplastics and nanoplastics are getting into our bodies,” says Matthew J. Campen, a toxicologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. A recent study revealed that microplastics have been found in 1,300 species, including humans. So far, these pollutants have been detected throughout the human body, from the brain to the insides of bones; concentrations have also been found in testes, semen and the placenta of unborn fetuses.
Microplastic intake by organisms has increased sixfold since 1990, and plastic production continues to grow. A 2025 University of New Mexico study Campen co-authored revealed that concentrations of microplastics found in human brain tissue have increased by a sharp 50 percent in less than a decade. “There are still a lot of questions as to whether these plastics are really impacting our health at this point,” says Campen, who also studies the effects of complex inhaled pollutant mixtures on respiratory, cardiac and vascular outcomes. He goes on to note the existence of evidence that “there might be issues for cardiovascular disease and potentially neurological disease.” The links, however, are not strong enough to be conclusive.
Though the exact impacts of microplastic consumption on human health are unclear, a number of recent studies have linked it to adverse health issues like cancers, respiratory and cardiac diseases, hormonal disruptions, Alzheimer’s disease and other noncommunicable diseases. While several water filtration systems are available, they aren’t all efficient and easily accessible to everyone. Traditional systems often rely primarily on chemical treatments and may also require labor-intensive upkeep and frequent membrane changes. They also come with high price tags and maintenance costs.
In the spring of 2024, Heller had the idea for her filtration system, but she really got working on it in the summer of 2025. By early January of that year, after tinkering in her garage and kitchen, she had a working prototype. “It was essentially just a container,” she says. Within the container was her filtration system, what she called a “spinning magnified vial.” Heller harnessed a reusable magnetic oil called ferrofluid to selectively bind to microplastic particles as water flows through her filtration system. While her model successfully filtered out the microplastics from the water in two simple steps, the system still required constant maintenance, as it did not self-recycle the ferrofluid.
“But if I could create a system that was able to basically clean itself and reuse material," she explains, “the maintenance needs could go down by a lot.”
Determined to find an answer, Heller continued experimenting. One of the main obstacles she faced was figuring out how to place her units so that the ferrofluid—a liquid thicker than water—would be able to move into the water chamber above it without getting clogged. Along with the ferrofluid flow, the process of magnetic separation followed by the recovery of ferrofluid also needed to work together as one system rather than competing with each other.
About five iterations later, she found the perfect solution. Her current prototype, which is about the size of a standard bag of flour, consists of three modules. The first unit, about a liter in volume, holds the contaminated water inside it, while the second stores the magnetic oil-based ferrofluid. The core process takes place in the third module, which is much smaller. “A magnetic field pulls the microplastics out of the water, and the ferrofluid is recovered and reused in a closed loop,” explains Heller. As a stand-alone filter (similar to a Brita pitcher), the system can filter about one liter of water at a time.
Next, to test the accuracy of her device, she developed a turbidity sensor, which measures the amount of suspended solids in a liquid. She used the sensor to precisely gauge the amount of ferrofluid and microplastics in the water. The sensor also calculated the weight-based percentage of microplastics removed by her filter. According to her tests, her prototype successfully removed 95.52 percent of microplastics from the water and recycled 87.15 percent of the ferrofluid. Traditional drinking-water treatment plants remove about 70 to more than 90 percent of microplastic components.
“The result is an affordable, low-waste filtration system without the use of a solid membrane,” says Heller.
Her innovation has garnered some well-deserved accolades. Heller was a finalist in the 2025 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair, the world’s largest global science competition for high school students. There, she was presented with a special $500 award by the Patent and Trademark Office Society for her innovative, low-cost and efficient water filtration technology. Campen is excited about Heller’s filtration system and considers it a “really great idea.” He adds, “She is doing something that has to be done.” And considering that her recent test results are just a starting point for a high school research project, he continues, one can only imagine that those percentages would improve with a little bit of investment in innovative engineering.
The toxicologist still has some valid concerns. “We have to know that the way she extracts these microplastics captures them in a way that we can then discard them or destroy them in a way that gets rid of them completely,” he says. The system, he adds, shouldn’t “leave some other pollutant residue that we have to deal with.” Assuming it does remove the microplastic components without leaving any residues, then the next question, he explains, is whether it’s scalable.
Campen wonders about the best application for Heller’s device. Would it be most effective installed in individual plumbing systems or, on a bigger scale, placed directly at municipal water treatment plants? Heller considers it suitable as an at-home under-the-sink filtration system. “Because ferrofluid is currently expensive to produce at a large scale,” she notes, “I see this as a system for individual home use.” But Heller plans to take things one step at a time, and for now, would simply like to professionally confirm the results she found at home. “I would love to eventually bring it out to market,” she says. “I think that would be something that would be really interesting.”
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nivek
As Above So Below
Microplastics crisis: could gloves be contaminating the findings?
One of the biggest environmental concerns raised in recent years is the sheer extent of microplastic contamination in our oceans, in our water supply, in our food and pretty much everywhere else. Scientists have been proposing that when these microplastics get into our bodies, they can cause various health problems and may increase our risk of cancer and other diseases.Now, though, a new study has somewhat thrown a spanner in the works by highlighting what seems to be a fundamental flaw common to a large percentage of studies into microplastics. According to researchers at the University of Michigan, the laboratory gloves used during the majority of these studies may themselves be covered in microplastics that can contaminate the samples to the tune of 2,000 false positive signals per square millimeter.
This means that the findings of these studies may suggest much higher levels than are actually there. "The type of contact we tried to mimic touches upon all varieties of microplastics research," said study lead author Madeline Clough. "If you are contacting a sample with a gloved hand, you're likely imparting these stearates that could overestimate your results."
That said, this doesn't mean that there are no microplastics at all in the samples. "We may be overestimating microplastics, but there should be none," said study co-author Anne McNeil. "There's still a lot out there, and that's the problem."
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