The little-known unintended consequence of recycling plastics

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/05/22/plastic-recycling-microplastic-pollution/

Author: Allyson Chiu

Instead of helping to tackle the world’s staggering plastic waste problem, recycling may be exacerbating a concerning environmental problem: microplastic pollution. A recent peer-reviewed study that focused on a recycling facility in the United Kingdom suggests that anywhere between 6 to 13 percent of the plastic processed could end up being released into water or the air as microplastics — ubiquitous tiny particles smaller than five millimeters that have been found everywhere from Antarctic snow to inside human bodies.