microplastic pollution

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the pervasive contamination of marine and freshwater environments by plastic particles smaller than five millimetres in diameter, derived either from the primary manufacture of small plastic pellets and microbeads used in cosmetics and industrial processes or from the secondary fragmentation of larger plastic objects through ultraviolet degradation, wave action, and mechanical abrasion; microplastics have been detected in every ocean environment from the Arctic sea ice to the deepest hadal trenches, in marine organisms from zooplankton and filter feeders to sea turtles and seabirds, and in human blood, lung tissue, and placentas; their ecological impacts include physical harm to marine organisms, the transfer of toxic chemical contaminants adsorbed onto plastic surfaces, and disruption of feeding behaviour