Microplastic Sources, Reduction and Remediation: Current State and Future Trends

Abstract

Plastic waste (PW) and microplastics (MPs) pollution represent one of the main ecological challenges and thus attract society's increasing attention. The exponential growth of plastics' presence and its small (1 μm – 5 mm) particles (MPs) in the environment and inhabiting species is a consequence of linear economy employment. The circular economy has been proposed as the promising route to using plastics more sustainably, and its implementation in the plastic management system is imposed to reduce MPs release. As MPs are emitted in all phases of the plastic life cycle, actions at all levels of the value chain are necessary. Prioritizing the entire plastic value chain also became the goal of more recent plastic pollution regulations, contrary to the previous ones, primarily prohibiting particular plastic items. The microplastic minimization strategy follows an upside-down pyramid, beginning with prevention, then reducing, reusing, recycling, recovering, and finally disposal, which is the least desired alternative. New technologies development for synthetic polymer production and remediation technologies innovations are another key component of the circular economy model. This study outlines microplastics' primary and secondary sources, summarizes the current methods for MPs elimination from different media along with their benefits and drawbacks, and highlights the importance of circular economy principles employment to minimize the MPs' pollution and their possible environmental repercussions.