Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com Current Opinion in

ScienceDirect Green and Sustainable Chemistry

Green strategies for microplastics reduction

Mónica Calero, Verónica Godoy, Lucía Quesada and
María Ángeles Martín-Lara

Currently, one of the biggest challenges is to reduce plastics detergents [4]. The quantities of primary MPs from the
contamination worldwide. In this scenario, some political, mentioned sources discharged by the EU in a year are
economic and social factors play a very important role in between 2900 and 7400 tonnes, being microplastics
implementing efficient processes to control the plastic waste from PCPs the most contaminant source. The group of
problem. In this work, some of the most recent advances in this secondary MPs includes the wear of synthetic textile
field are presented. The eco-design of plastic products, the garments, the wear of tires, the paints of ships or roads
improvement of legislation for the manufacture, recycling and and the physical-chemical degradation of plastic waste
use of alternative materials, as well as for the intentional [5]. The quantities of secondary MPs dumped every
addition of microplastics to products, the development and year in the EU are estimated between 1.5 and 1.6 Mt,
research in biodegradable plastic and bioplastics, and the being tire wear the major source of those MPs [6e8].
improvement of wastewater treatment facilities are important MPs often reach seas and oceans through the litter
tools to reduce microplastic contamination and promote the dropped in towns, cities and beaches, poorly managed
circular economy. waste discharges, sewage and effluents, or lost fishing
and shipping stuffs [9].
Addresses
Department of Chemical Engineering University of Granada, 18071,
The main challenge to control and reduce the discharge
Granada, Spain of MPs comprises the development of strong and unitary
legislation and the punishment of the countries that do
Corresponding author: Calero, Mónica ([email protected]) not comply with them. The European regulation
“Strategy for Plastics in the Circular Economy” [10]
aims to restrict the intentional addition of MPs to
Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry 2021,
28:100442
products, to control the loss of pellets and to evaluate
the Urban Wastewater Directive with regard to the
This review comes from a themed issue on Microplastics (2021)
effectiveness of the capture and disposal of micro-
Edited by Teresa Rocha-Santos and Catherine Mounyrac plastics. This regulation also considers carrying out ac-
Available online 6 January 2021 tions for reducing the unintentional dumping of MPs by
For complete overview of the section, please refer the article improving the tire design (abrasion and durability),
collection - Microplastics (2021) extending product labeling and allocating more financial
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsc.2020.100442 resources for ecodesign of plastic products and recycling.
2452-2236/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Also, there is still an intense debate around biodegrad-
able plastics as part of the solution to solid waste accu-
mulation. Dilkes-Hoffman et al. [11] consider that
efficacy of biodegradable plastics should not be under-
Targeting the problem of plastic waste in estimated, but it depends on several factors such as the
the environment development of strong and unified legislation and the
Plastic wastes represent an important fraction of improvement of waste sorting and organic waste
municipal solid waste in most developed countries in handling technologies. Finally, tools for monitoring
the world. Every year, 29.1 million tonnes of plastics are marine debris and understand its spatialetemporal re-
introduced annually into the municipal waste stream in lationships need to be improved, as well as the devel-
the EU, of which approximately 25% is still deposited in opment of activities and events to raise citizen
landfills [1]. Also, 8 million tonnes of mismanaged awareness.
plastic waste are dumped into the ocean, which can
degrade via foto-oxidation and thermo-oxidation into Figure 1 shows a summary of the main sources of
microplastics [2]. These particles are defined as syn- microplastics, the pollution that is produced and the
thetic in composition, nondegradable, insoluble in water possible solutions that can be adopted to reduce the
and smaller than 5 mm [3]. production and dumping of these particles.

Primary MPs are those intentionally added to personal Reduce, reuse, recycle and recover plastics
care products (PCPs), drilling fluids for oil and natural Waste management is based on the hierarchy of the four
gas extraction, products used for abrasive cleaning or in Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle and recover [12]. The best

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2 Microplastics (2021)

Figure 1

Microplastics pollution in environments and some solutions to reduce this problem.

way to avoid the generation of microplastics is to reduce Redesigning plastics for circularity
the amount of plastic waste. This can be achieved by In the last few decades, a series of standards and different
reducing the production of plastic materials, using environmental labels were published with the purpose of
alternative materials such as glass, cardboard or other covering the environmental aspects of products. Among
recycled or biodegradable products, as well as reusing the set of standards is ISO 14006, which provides guide-
discarded plastics by creating other products. One of the lines for the incorporation of ecodesign [23]. Ecodesign
strategies that is proving to be quite successful is the talks about activities taken at the development phase in
return of containers in deposits, mainly due to the order to reduce the environmental impact of the whole
economic incentive for citizens [13]. Another alterna- life cycle of the product [24,25].
tive is recycling, which saves resources and energy, as
well as reduces polluting emissions, thus benefiting In the case of plastics, eco-designing schemes should be
society and the environment [14]. Finally, using plastics applied to change the current way plastics are produced
for energy production or for the production of new raw with the objective of reduction/prevention and reuse, and it
materials is the basis of the recovery process [15]. When requires a fine balance between regulations and incentives
it is not possible to reuse or recycle plastic products, the [26]. Other actions can be focused on the production of
recovery of the energy stored into a residual material can plastics free of toxic additives, the use of alternative ma-
be carried out through several mechanical, biological and terials or the production of long-life plastics [27].
caloric systems that convert, reprocess and break up
plastic waste into new materials or energy. Minimizing the loss of preproduction plastic pellets –
initiative Operation Clean Sweep® (OCS)
Plastic waste reduction strategies at the The loss of pellets in the EU accounted for between 16,000
industrial level and 16,5000 tonnes every year [5]. Operation Clean
Currently, the plastics industry has a need of constant SweepÒ is one of the industry initiatives to mitigate this
reinvention in the context of a circular economy, as the problem. Property of PLASTICS (Plastics Industry Asso-
production should be linked with plastic waste reduc- ciation) and the American Chemical Council, it is a
tion and their progress towards circularity [16]. voluntary program designed to prevent pellets (pellets or
primary microplastics) from ending up in the sea.
The most important strategies for the reduction of
plastic waste and progress towards circularity include The Operation Clean SweepÒ (OCS) scheme consists
(1) redesigning plastics for circularity, (2) minimizing of promoting the use of good cleaning practices and
the loss of preproduction plastic pellets, (3) extending pellet control in all operations in which plastic pellets
the producer responsibility, (4) banning certain types of are handled to minimize leakage to the environment.
single-use plastics and (5) supporting the market for Some of the most relevant measures are easily applied,
recycled plastics [17e22]. and they include (1) the use of sieves in drains to

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 Green strategies for microplastics reduction Calero et al. 3

prevent spilled pellets from entering the sewage system, carbon footprint and the accumulation of plastics and
(2) the use of higher resistance bags or change from microplastic in the environment, has driven in recent
smaller package forms into bulk loading e.g. silos and the years the development of new bioplastic materials that
use of a liner with sleeves when filling containers to have the same requirements as those used so far but
prevent pellet loss during loading and transportation, with less impact on the environment [33]. The term
(3) the use of a more efficient cleaning by using vacuum ‘bioplastic’ refers to the plastic generated from renew-
unit to remove powder spillages or (4) the publication of able biomass sources [34].
the best practices for internal and external audiences to
create good working procedures and specific in- The use of bioplastics comprises some environmental
structions to achieve zero pellet loss goals. advantages, such as increasing resource efficiency by
using biomass as raw material, saving fossil-fuel re-
Extending the producer responsibility sources, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and
Another tool that can be used to decrease the release of carbon footprint and reduction in the overall cost of
plastic waste is the Extended Producer Responsibility manufacturing products [35,36]. Bioplastic materials
Principle (EPR), in which the responsibility of the also have important technical advantages. For example,
producer is extended to the postconsumer stage of the polyethylene furanoate (PEF) represents a better bar-
product. In the EU, the implementation of the EPR has rier against oxygen, CO2 and water steam compared to
shown some difficulties, including the lack of mandatory polyethylene terephthalate (PET) [37].
instruments with concrete measures and the lack of
incentives for innovation. Consequently, the EPR needs However, there are some confusing concepts that make
to be readjusted to be effective in the reduction of it difficult to understand bioplastics. Bio-based plastics
plastic waste [28]. For example, in order to achieve a or bioplastics are those that come from renewable
consistent approach, this tool should be based on actual sources independently of their biodegradability [38].
data, reflecting the real costs of waste management and Biodegradation of plastics does not depend on the raw
assigning fees and support on a reasonable basis. Also, if material but is rather linked to its chemical structure.
producers are only required to fund up to a specific There are bio-based and biodegradable plastics (starch
target, they could pull away in areas where costs of and corn blends such as polylactic acid (PLA), poly-
service may be higher. Moreover, restrictions on addi- hydroxyalkanoate (PHA) or polybutylene succinate
tives constituents that are problematic for later waste (PBS)) and also bio-based and nonbiodegradable plas-
management should be harmonized. tics (usually commodity and thermosets plastics that are
made from renewable resources (commonly bio-
Banning certain types of single-use plastics ethanol)) [38e40].
Several world’s governments have banned some single-
use plastics for relieving plastic marine pollution [29]. Bioplastics have been widely applied as the packaging of
Single-use plastics include bags, food packaging, bottles pharmaceutical materials, drug capsules and in agricul-
or containers that are used only once before turning into tural industries [40,41]. Other sectors that are increas-
waste. ingly demanding bioplastics are single-use bags, the
manufacture of household appliances (mainly for the
In the European Union, the single-use plastics directive bathroom) and bioplastics for quilting in agriculture.
that prohibits, from 2021, the sale of single-use plastics
is yet underway. However, unfortunately, coronavirus Bioplastics also present certain technical complexities
pandemic has contributed to the stop of prohibitions on that need to be solved. For example, many bioplastics
single-use plastics in some other countries [30,31]. derived from agricultural materials pose a challenge to
food safety, as these materials do not fulfill the necessary
physical requirements [42]. It is also necessary to
Supporting the market for recycled plastics
improve the separate collection and sorting of biode-
Currently, recycled plastic production is not economi-
gradable materials, as Directive 2018/851 of the Euro-
cally competitive. Some possible actions to support the
pean Parliament about waste sets the objective of
market for recycled plastics can be focused on (1) set
separate collection and recycling of bio-waste in all
taxes on the use of virgin plastics; (2) introduce cam-
European countries by 2023 [43]. Also, quality controls
paigns concerning the environmental benefits of the use
of the final compost to meet technical requirements and
of recycled plastics or (3) incentive the production of more facilities to accommodate the waste are needed
recycled plastics [32]. [44,45]. In addition, legislation on bioplastics should be
strengthened to avoid the incorrect management of
Developing new bioplastics and their waste and further pollution of the environment, as
biodegradable plastics well as improve the balance between the properties of
The increasing demand of society for environmentally the bioplastic during the use phase and its subsequent
sustainable products, as well as the need to reduce the biodegradability. Also, a better understanding of the fate
www.sciencedirect.com Current Opinion in Green and Sustainable Chemistry 2021, 28:100442
4 Microplastics (2021)

and potential impacts of MPs from bioplastics is  The role of industries is to improve the design of
important for progress in this field [46e48]. plastic products (eco-design) to allow more reuse and
better recycling, as well as investing in more sus-
Improving wastewater treatment technology tainable products (avoiding single-use plastics).
One of the main routes of environmental pollution  The economic measures should include more re-
through microplastics is the wastewater treatment sources in the research and development of biode-
plants. This wastewater contains microplastics that gradable plastics and bioplastics, as well as
come mainly from cosmetics, cleaners or synthetic improvement of waste recycling facilities in general
clothing [49,50]. Currently, wastewater treatment and composting facilities for biodegradable waste.
plants can remove 90e98% of microplastics, yet the final This would help in promoting recycling and make it
effluent contains a large amount of microplastics, which more economically viable.
are reintroduced into the environment [51,52]. Conse-  Finally, legislation on control in the production of
quently, a large amount of microplastics is discharged plastics, waste management and use of alternative
into rivers and oceans [53]. Microplastics removed from materials should be unified and reinforced.
wastewater during treatment processes are often
washed away with the sludge, which is commonly used Declaration of competing interest
as organic fertilizer [54]. As an example, in the The authors declare that they have no known competing
Vancouver (Canada) wastewater treatment plant, a financial interests or personal relationships that could
water inflow with 1.76 billion microplastics is deter- have appeared to influence the work reported in this
mined annually, of which 1.28 billion ends up in the paper.
primary sludge, 0.36 billion in secondary sludge and 0.03
billion are discharged to rivers and seas [55]. References
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