Compost contributes to plastic pollution in the environment: further investigation required according to Ad Ragas
A previously unknown source of microplastic pollution
A new study traced the contamination of fertilizer back to household and supermarket waste
Composting waste is heralded as being good for the environment. But it turns out that compost collected from homes and grocery stores is a previously unknown source of microplastic pollution, a new study April 4 in Science Advances reports.
This plastic gets spread over fields, where it may be eaten by worms and enter the food web, make its way into waterways or perhaps break down further and become airborne, says Christian Laforsch, an ecologist at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. Once the plastic is spread across fields, “we don’t know its fate,” he says.
What does environmental scientist Ad Ragas say in the post?
'I never thought about plastic in compost ending up as fertilizer. But when you think about it, it makes sense,' says environmental scientist Ad Ragas, who wasn’t involved in the work. A crate of rotting cucumbers wrapped in plastic that gets chucked, those stickers on every tomato in a bunch — that packaging doesn’t disappear.
Ragas says compost probably doesn’t contribute as much plastic to the environment as other sources, such as sewage treatment plant sludge, which contains polyester debris from clothes washers, and runoff from streets, which can be loaded with particles of synthetic rubber used in tires. But the compost contribution deserves investigation, Ragas says. 'This triggers a lot of questions we haven’t studied yet.'
Read the full article on www.sciencenews.org.
