EU set to make microplastic problem worse

The world is being smothered by a growing cloud of toxic plastic particles, which the EU has pledged to ban. But powerful industrial polluters have secured loopholes including an exclusion for nano, the most dangerous form of microplastic. After its biofuels blunder, will microplastic be the next EU environmental policy disaster? Jack Hunter explores. 

The EU has promised to tackle microplastic pollution. Why? Because its own scientists are warning that the situation is out of control and will be a “widespread risk within a century.”

Relentless and rapidly growing plastic production and largely uncontrolled waste are creating an immense cloud of plastic particles that are polluting all known environments: the air we breathe, the food we eat and throughout our bodies, in Arctic snow, mountain soils and the deepest oceans.

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