资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

The images are sobering: dead sea birds and choking turtles caught in the plastic that is increasingly flooding into marine ecosystems.

In many parts of the world, this type of plastic pollution has grabbed headlines.

Yet there’s a similar environmental blight that gets far less attention but is potentially as harmful, say experts: agricultural plastic pollution. Recent research by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicates that agricultural soils may receive greater quantities of microplastics than oceans.

A byproduct of the slow deterioration of everything from protective mesh to greenhouse panels, this plastic leaches into soils around the world, reducing its quality and often entering the food chain.

With World Soil Day around the corner – it falls on 5 December – experts are raising the alarm about what they call an invisible threat to the world’s food systems.

“Our accounting systems don’t assign a value to healthy soil, so incentives to keep soil healthy are weak,” said Mahesh Pradhan, Coordinator of UNEP’s Global Partnership for Nutrient Management. “Plastic products on farms are really part of the toxic trail of economic growth.”