Micro/nano-plastics occurrence, identification, risk analysis and mitigation: challenges and perspectives

Micro/nanoplastics (MP/NPs) are emerging global pollutants that garnered enormous attention due to their potential threat to the ecosystem in virtue of their persistence and accumulation. Notably, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) yearbook in 2014 proposed MPs as one among ten emergent issues that the Earth is facing today. MP/NPs can be found in most regularly used products (primary microplastics) or formed by the fragmentation of bigger plastics (secondary microplastics) and are inextricably discharged into the environment by terrestrial and land-based sources, particularly runoff. They are non-degradable, biologically incompatible, and their presence in the air, soil, water, and food can induce…