While it is widely known that microplastics (MPs) in the ocean are a serious environmental problem, the threat posed by MPs in agricultural lands is almost entirely unknown. A large fraction of MPs produced in industrialized countries is intercepted by sewers. In treatment plants most of MPs are retained in the sludge. A sizeable fraction of this sewage sludge is spread in many countries on agricultural lands. We estimate the MP input to agricultural lands in Europe to be between 50000 and 175000 tonnes/year. More

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• Hurley, R.R, Nizzetto, L. Fate and occurrence of micro (nano) plastics in soils: Knowledge gaps and possible risks, 2018, Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, Pp 6-11

• Van Gestel, C.A.M & Selonen, S. 2018. Ecotoxicological effects of microplastics in soil: New research themes should not ignore basic rules and theories. Comments on the paper by Zhu et al. (2018) “Exposure of soil collembolans to microplastics perturbs their gut microbiota and alters their isotopic composition”. Soil Biology and Biochemistry 116:302-310.

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• Schell, T., Hurley, R., Buenaventura, N., Ablanque, P. V. M., Nizzetto, L., Rico, A., Vighi, M., Fate of microplastics in agricultural soils amended with sewage sludge: The importance of surface water runoff as an environmental pathway, 2022, Environmental Science & Technology

• Schell, T., Hurley, R., Nizzetto, L., Rico, A., Vighi, M., Spatio-temporal distribution of microplastics in a Mediterranean watershed: the importance of wastewater as an environmental pathway, 2021, Journal of Hazardous Materials 420: 126481.

• Selonen, S., Dolar, A., Jemec Kokalj, A., Sackey, L.N.A., Skalar, T., Cruz Fernandes, V., Rede, D., Delerue-Matos, C., Hurley, R., Nizzetto, L., Van Gestel, C.A.M. Exploring the impacts of microplastics and associated chemicals in the terrestrial environment – exposure of soil invertebrates to tire particles, 2021, Environmental Research 201: 111495.

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