{"id":74691,"date":"2025-11-23T12:28:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=74691"},"modified":"2025-11-24T16:06:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T10:36:25","slug":"microplastics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/microplastics\/","title":{"rendered":"Microplastics"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Microplastics Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Weather conditions, especially continuous rainfall, drive microplastics into city lakes, a new study reports.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Microplastics<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microplastics are<\/span><b> small pieces of plastics, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">usually <\/span><b>smaller than 5 mm.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>present in a variety of products,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from <\/span><b>cosmetics to synthetic clothing to plastic bags <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and bottles. Many of these products readily enter the environment as wastes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Microplastics <\/span><b>consist of carbon and hydrogen atoms bound together in polymer chains.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Other chemicals, such as phthalates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, polybrominated diphenyl ethers (<\/span><b>PBDEs<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), and <\/span><b>tetrabromobisphenol A<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (TBBPA), are typically <\/span><b>also present in microplastics, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and many of these chemical additives leach out of the plastics after entering the environment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>persistent<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>very mobile, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>hard to remove from nature.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are <\/span><b>two categories <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of microplastics: <\/span><b>primary and secondary.<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Primary microplastics <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are tiny particles <\/span><b>designed for commercial use,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as cosmetics, as well as microfibers shed from clothing and other textiles, such as fishing nets.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They <\/span><b>enter the environment directly through any of various channels<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014for example, product use, unintentional loss from spills during manufacturing or transport, or abrasion during washing.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><b>Secondary microplastics<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> are particles that <\/span><b>result from the breakdown of larger plastic items,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as water bottles.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This <\/span><b>breakdown is caused by exposure to environmental factors<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, mainly the <\/span><b>sun\u2019s radiation and ocean waves.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Impacts<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once in the environment, microplastics <\/span><b>do not biodegrade<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>tend to accumulate and persist.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They can be <\/span><b>ingested by marine organisms,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> leading to potential harm to aquatic life and <\/span><b>bioaccumulation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> along the food chain.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"2\">They can also <b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">carry toxic chemicals and pollutants,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> posing additional risks to organisms and ecosystems.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/city\/kochi\/microplastic-contamination-in-bottled-water-kerala-hc-directs-fssai-to-act\/articleshow\/125489286.cms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TOI<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microplastics are tiny plastic fragments under 5 mm found in everyday products. They persist in nature, carry harmful additives, and are difficult to remove.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":74826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3843,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-74691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-microplastics","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}