Editorial: New plastic pollution types and novel sources of microplastic pollution in marine systems

Abstract

Plastic pollution has been extensively studied over the past decades. For instance, it is well known that animals get entangled in discarded plastic (Afonso and Fidelis, 2023) and consume microplastics (plastic particles < 5 mm) while foraging (Ehlers et al., 2021). Examples of microplastic sources comprise everyday single-use items such as plastic packaging material (Tziourrou et al., 2021), lost or discarded plastic fishing gear (Wu et al., 2023), and tire wear (Goßmann et al., 2021). However, novel microplastic sources, such as weathering polymer-based paints, have only recently been identified (Figure 1A). Even though paints are used in various applications on a regular basis, this source has been largely neglected in the past (Gaylarde et al., 2021).