Too much microplastic in the soil

The situation is paradoxical. While the EU is mobilising against the constant increase in plastic waste with its newest regulation, the plastics industry is celebrating record high sales. In Germany, more than 63,4 billion euros were recorded in sales in 2018. At present, there is no sign of a trend reversal among plastic manufacturers.

Yet, it is obvious that this immense consumption of plastic is becoming an even greater problem for the environment. Apart from polluted beaches and plastic waste floating in our oceans, there is another less prominent but equally alarming danger: microplastic in the soil. Christian Laforsch, a scientist at the University of Bayreuth, raised the alarm in the documentary series on Germany’s ZDF channel „planet e“: „Wherever I am searching for microplastics, in the garden, on the grass in front of the university or on farmland – we will always find microplastics“.

The scientists found more microscopically small plastic parts on farmland than in the oceans. For every hectare of farmland, Laforsch and his team calculated up to 150,000 microplastic parts. The team also found up to 900 plastic particles per kilogram in compost, the basis for healthy soil. Organic household or supermarket waste is often used to make compost. The latter is delivered to the compost facilities still wrapped in its packaging, so that a lot of plastic can get into the compost or into the liquid fermentation residues of biogas plants. The result: there is hardly any compost without plastic residues. Those plastic residues then end up as biological fertilisers on our farmland and in due consequence are deposited in the soil.

As a result, researchers have strongly favoured the removal of plastic from organic waste before composting. If necessary, special waste detection systems, if manually of via modern technology, should be applied to make sure that consumers and supermarkets really adhere to the plastic prohibition in organic waste.