Review of micro- and nanoplastic contamination in the food chain

Abstract

Whereas the dramatic environmental impact of plastic waste rightfully receives considerable attention by scientists, policy makers and public in general, the human health impact of microand nanoplastics contamination of our food and beverages remains largely unknown. Indeed, most studies aim at understanding the environmental impact rather than the human health impact of a possible exposure to micro-and nanoplastics. In addition, these papers generally lack a methodological, standardised approach. Furthermore, some studies focus on the damage to and contamination level of animal species collected from the wild environment, and others investigate the rate and biology of microplastic uptake of animals fed with microplastics in laboratory. This review aims at understanding human exposure. Since there is, with few exceptions, no evidence available on the presence of micro-and nanoplastics in a normal diet, this study takes an indirect approach and analyses peer-reviewed publications since 2010 that document the presence of micro-and nanoplastics in those animals (more than 200 species) and food products that are part of the human food chain and that may thus contribute directly or indirectly to the uptake of micro-and nanoplastics via the human diet. It also addresses the question of the definitions, the methodologies and the quality criteria applied to obtain the reported results. This review suggests that, beyond a few estimations and comparisons, precise data to assess the exact exposure of humans to micro-and nanoplastics through their diet cannot be produced until standardised methods and definitions are available.

Method for Zero-Waste Circular Economy using worms for plastic agriculture: Augmenting polystyrene consumption and plant growth

“…Given that both mealworms and superworms have also been evaluated to be nutritious as fish feed 20 and poultry 11 , the mealworm and superworm are valuable plastic degraders that can also be used to provide cost-effective feed in food production in urban farming. While further research is required to ensure that plasticizers or other plastic degradation products do not bioaccumulate and get introduced into the food chain to humans (see review on plasticizer accumulation in the food chain 21,22 ), the ability of our frass analysis shows promise for reasonably safe degradation of PS, a finding in agreement with many other reports 8,9,16,17,23 .…”

Managing the analytical challenges related to micro- and nanoplastics in the environment and food: filling the knowledge gaps

“…Research priorities should focus on NMPs to get a better understanding of all processes related to the generation, fate, exposure, and effects of those plastics. Recent literature reviews confirmed the presence of MPs in surface water and sediments as well in some (limited) food products (Burns and Boxall 2018;Toussaint et al 2019;Hantoro et al 2019;Koelmans et al 2019 and papers cited herein). Detection and quantification of NMPs in complex matrices such as food products is difficult, primarily due to the absence of reliable analytical methods (Hermsen et al 2018).…”

“…Moreover, concerning the impact on human health, it is also important to understand the MP exposure through food and drinking water consumption . Although numerous scientific studies confirm that the highest quantities of MPs are in the digestive tract of seafood, which is a part of commercial fish that is usually discarded before consumption, there is still little knowledge about NMPs in other food products (Toussaint et al 2019). The European Food Safety Authority concluded that there is an urgent need for occurrence data in food and moreover to understand the effects of food processing (EFSA 2016).…”

“…Although there are already a considerable number of identification methods available (Hidalgo-Ruz et al 2012;Huppertsberg and Knepper 2018;Toussaint et al 2019), there is still an absence of methods for quantification of MPs to understand their occurrence in drinking water and food. The analysis of nanoparticles is even more challenging.…”

Microplastics Removal from Treated Wastewater by a Biofilter

“…Nowadays, MP has been detected not only in various water bodies [6][7][8], soils and sediments [9][10][11], but also in indoor air [12], table salts [13], and even in the atmosphere in remote areas [14]. More recently, ingestion and entanglement of MP was also found by freshwater and deep-sea organisms [15][16][17][18], which raised a concern that the human food chain is under risk of MP contamination [19,20].…”