More than 300 global studies suggest that microplastics do or do not cause harm to the environment

A review of 320 studies by the University of York revealed that monitoring tends to focus on only a fraction of the micro-plastic size rang...

A review of 320 studies by the University of York revealed that monitoring tends to focus on only a fraction of the micro-plastic size range leading to "major knowledge gaps" around our understanding of the impact they are having on the environment.

Microplastics are defined as plastic particles has less than five millimetres in size. They can come from a number of sources, including cosmetics, tires and clothing such as fleeces.
the review found that environmental monitoring studies typically look at larger particles, down to 100th of a millimetre, while the effects studies often look at much smaller particles, down to 10000th of a millimetre.
Polystyrene is the material that has been most analysed in laboratory effects studies whereas in the real environment these particles make up only 5% of the materials monitored. This makes it problematic to conclude what the real impacts are.
The researchers says that there is an urgent need for more studies to plug the gaps in our scientific knowledge.
fragments and fibres dominate, with beads accounting for only 3% of the detected Microplastic types.
Professor Alistair Boxall from the University of York's Environment and Geography Department, said: "Based on our analysis there is currently limited evidence to suggest microplastics are causing significant adverse impacts.

"However, at the moment we are trying to compare apples to pears when it comes to comparing monitoring data with effects data.