A Review on Aquatic Impacts of Microplastics and Its Bioremediation Aspects

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: During the nineteenth and twentieth century, production and usage of plastic material have increased and led to a serious problem for their non-degradable property, persistence in the environment. Natural factors act on plastic material fragmented into microplastics. Entering of microplastics causes threats to all ecosystems and their organisms. In this urgent need, this review summarizes (1) sources and transport of microplastics into aquatic ecosystems, (2) ecological impacts of microplastics in aquatic biota and their environment, (3) bacterial remediation of environmental microplastics and (4) mechanism involved bacterial remediation. RECENT FINDINGS: The terrestrial biosphere serves as a major hub for microplastic wastes and it has been settled in the aquatic ecosystem through the improper disposal methods of human beings. The aquatic biota attains severe effects such as reduced food consumption, fecundity and triggered inflammation; moreover, microplastics ingestion leads to changes in physical, chemical, and gene levels of aquatic organisms. Hence, it is an urgent need to prevent further entry of microplastics (from origin) and eliminate the persisted microplastics in the environment. Recently, researchers are trying to use bacterial strains for microplastics degradation as an eco-friendly and more safe method because during degradation the daughter metabolites carbon dioxide, methane, and water will be produced. Microplastics are a major concern pollutant in earth. Unfortunately, ingestion of microplastics in each trophic organisms via the food chain. In this situation, eradicating the environmental microplastics through an eco-friendly approach using bacteria is a effective remediation technique. Furthermore, research needed using different formulations including bacteria and their based components, consortium of bacteria have enhanced the efficacy of degradation.