Microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs): Introduction

Microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) are new types of emerging pollutant of high concern that appeared as an ineluctable consequence of our actual Plasticene era or Age of Plastics started in the mid-20th century with the exponential increase in the global production, consumption, and disposal of synthetic polymers and plastic products. In the wake of the first observation of oceanic macroscopic plastic debris in the 1970s, the problems of MPs and more recently of NPs gained an exponentially increasing and relevant attention from different scientific communities because of the essential contemporary questions and concerns it raises. Those micro- and nano-pollutants have to be considered as environmental contaminants of emerging concern as they may cause adverse ecological or human health impacts through the alteration of the quality of the ecosystems, of the environment, and of the entire food chain, while being still outside any official regulation by authorities to date. Because of the emerging nature of this multiscale solid pollution, no adequate wastewater treatments exist nowadays at the industrial scale for hindering its release to the environment. In addition to their accumulation in the soils and in the local ecosystems with subsequent interaction, MP and NP wastes, whether they are released deliberately or accidentally, have consequently the oceans as final destination with an ubiquitous distribution at the world scale.