Plastic pollution in croplands threatens long‐term food security

Abstract

Plastic pollution is a global concern given its prevalence in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Studies have been conducted on the distribution and impact of plastic pollution in marine ecosystems, but little is known on terrestrial ecosystems. Plastic mulch has been widely used to increase crop yields worldwide, yet the impact of plastic residues in cropland soils to soil health and crop production in the long term remained unclear. In this paper, using a global meta-analysis, we found that the use of plastic mulch can indeed increase crop yields on average by 25%-42% in the immediate season due to the increase of soil temperature (+8%) and moisture (+17%). S U PP O RTI N G I N FO R M ATI O NAdditional supporting information may be found online in the Supporting Information section. How to cite this article: Zhang D, Ng EL, Hu W, et al. Plastic pollution in croplands threatens long-term food security. Glob Change Biol. 2020;26:3356-3367. https://doi.

Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Ecosystem Services, Sustainable Development Goals, and Need to Focus on Circular Economy and Policy Interventions

“…Plastics (particularly MPs) in the agricultural soil [201,202], vegetables and fruits [203], and seafood [204,205] are a potential threat to sustainable food production system and food security. Zhang et al [206] reported that the accumulation of plastic film residues in the field negatively impacts the physicochemical properties linked to soil health and negatively impacts food production. They showed that crop yield decreased at the mean rate of 3% for an additional 100 kg/ha of film residue and there were also negative impacts on plant height, root growth, and soil properties such as soil water infiltration rates, soil organic matter, and soil available phosphorus.…”

Soil-Food-Environment-Health Nexus for Sustainable Development

“…Similar issues can be found in microplastics in soil that are derived from the misuse of plastic film mulch and other plastic products. To increase crop yields, plastic mulch is widely used, mainly in dryland regions to maintain soil moisture and in cold regions to increase soil temperature [ 12 ]. However, the low recovery of plastic mulch results in the accumulation of a large amount of plastic film residues in soils that alter their physicochemical properties, threatening plant growth in the long term.…”

“…However, the low recovery of plastic mulch results in the accumulation of a large amount of plastic film residues in soils that alter their physicochemical properties, threatening plant growth in the long term. Meanwhile, these small pieces of plastic and their additives such as phthalates in soil can be taken up by plants and transferred along the food chain to consumers, including humans [ 12 ]. These microplastics have been detected in the excreta of humans in many countries.…”

Synthesis and characterization of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) precursors and potential degradation products: Toxicity study and application in discovery of novel PETases

“…Nevertheless 'phthalates' have also been labeled as toxic and possible endocrine disruptors (Sathyanarayana, 2008;Sax, 2010). More recently, microplastics and bigger fragments of plastic are recognized as specific problem found worldwide in oceans and terrestrial environments (Gao et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2020). Microplastics were recently found in the snow of once pristine Mount Everest (Napper et al, 2020), high mountain lakes of Alps (Pastorino et al, 2020), as well as in the deep-marine environments (Kane & Clare, 2019).…”