Microplastics may enter freshwater and soil via compost
A new study traces the contamination of fertilizer back to household and supermarket waste
TAINTED SOIL Compost from homes and grocery stores that’s spread on fields as fertilizers is an overlooked source of plastic pollution.
Chrissine Cairns/flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Composting waste is heralded as being good for the environment. But it turns out that compost collected from homes and grocery stores is a previously unknown source of microplastic pollution, a new study April 4 in Science Advances reports.
This plastic gets spread over fields, where it may be eaten by worms and enter the food web, make its way into waterways or perhaps break down further and become airborne, says Christian Laforsch, an ecologist at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. Once the plastic is spread across fields, “we don’t know its fate,” he says.
That fate and the effects of plastic pollution on land and in freshwater has received little research attention compared with marine plastic pollution, says ecologist Chelsea Rochman of the University of Toronto. Ocean microplastics have gained notoriety thanks in part to coverage of the floating hulk of debris called
