Plastic Debris: Seawater and Freshwater Environments

Plastic pollution is one of the most cited emergent contaminants in the last decade, with too many negative impacts on aquatic systems (marine and freshwaters), organisms, and humans. Plastic debris is a complicated issue not just because we do not understand the mechanisms for the negative impact on different ecosystems and organisms but also because of the challenges for their analysis when the particles decrease in size to microplastics and nanoplastics. The pollution caused by microplastics is a potential hazard to aquatic life because of the known potential to adsorb persistent organic pollutants. Many of them are endocrine disruptors. Little information is currently available on plastic materials' composition, distribution, or fate in freshwater ecosystems.