Author Description

"Plastics are considered to be one of the greatest industrial inventions of the last century, which are widely used and bring great convenience. As global demand grows, global plastic production continues to increase, for example exceeding 350 billion tons in 2018. However, the convenience of plastics has also sparked a throw-away mentality, leading to a large amount of plastic waste entering various environments as plastic pollution. It is estimated that total release of plastics will reach 250 million tons by 2025. The discharged plastics in the environment will gradually be decomposed to plastic particles under various environmental stressors such as sunlight, weathering and erosion. Among them, those with a particle size in the range of 0.1 mm to 5 mm are considered as microplastics. In addition, small artificial plastic particles added to personal products are also a major source of microplastics. Massive usage of plastic products and poor management of plastic waste disposal have resulted in the release of large quantities of microplastics into the environment. Moreover, microplastics are hardly degradable through weathering and aging; they therefore accumulate and persist in the various environments for years to decades. Urban waters such as lakes, river, wastewater, drinking water and others are closely related to human production and life, which are considered to be the important paths of microplastics migration and accumulation. Microplastics have been frequently and significantly detected in different urban waters such as wastewater, wastewater treatment plant effluent, surface water and drinking water. Microplastics have been demonstrated to induce chronic toxicity to living organisms after ingestion, and this potentially toxic effect could be transmitted to the human body through the food chain, posing a potential threat to aquatic species and human health. Therefore, microplastics have aroused increasing concerns, and the problems and its potential ris