Roberto Rosal

A team has proposed an indicator known as the plastic particle footprint (PPF) to measure the environmental impact of microplastics and nanoplastics in products. In an article published in Science Advances, the authors apply this calculation to four everyday items and claim that calculating this footprint could “radically change the best material option”. For example, a polyester T-shirt and a cotton one have a similar carbon footprint, but the PPF of the former is higher than that of the cotton garment.

Colored microplastics and nanoplastics suspended in the atmosphere could contribute to global warming at a level equivalent to 16% of that caused by soot. The findings, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggest that these particles may be previously unrecognized contributors to climate change, and that their role should be taken into account in future climate assessments. The authors note that laboratory experiments are a simplified version of atmospheric processes and that the global distribution of microplastic and nanoplastic particles must be determined more precisely through observations.

A study based on models and data concludes that adverse health effects related to plastic emissions could more than double by 2040 if current practices do not change. The authors note that their model could not assess the potential impacts associated with many chemicals contained in plastics, nor with the microplastics and nanoplastics that form throughout their life cycle, due to a lack of data and “a serious lack of transparency regarding their composition.” The results are published in The Lancet Planetary Health. 

A study published in Nature estimates that atmospheric microplastic emissions have been overestimated. The authors compared measurements of atmospheric microplastics from 76 studies conducted between 2014 and 2024 at various locations around the world with model simulations. According to the simulations, atmospheric microplastic concentrations were between 100 and 10,000 times lower than previously estimated.

Ahead of the anticipated conclusion of a United Nations global treaty on plastics, a group of international experts calls for greater attention to health effects when addressing plastic pollution. The work, published in The Lancet, reviews current evidence on how plastics—including microplastics and plastic chemicals—affect health, and announces the launch of a new project to monitor these effects.

Research published in Science Advances concludes that the level of microplastics in the environment could be three times higher in 2060 than in 2019, even if one of the two more ambitious policy scenarios proposed by the OECD to reduce plastics is implemented.

An article reviews evidence on the accumulation of microplastics in human brain tissue recently published in Nature Medicine. The authors highlight practical measures to reduce exposure, noting that switching from bottled water to filtered tap water could reduce microplastic intake from 90,000 to 4,000 particles per year. The paper is a commentary in Brain Medicine. 

Based on a defense protein of the strawberry anemone, researchers from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, CSIC and the Complutense University of Madrid have designed, through artificial intelligence and the use of supercomputers, an artificial protein capable of degrading PET micro and nanoplastics, such as those used in bottles. According to the authors, its efficiency is between 5 and 10 times higher than that of the proteins currently used and it works at room temperature. The results are published in the journal Nature Catalysis.