Microplastics in the Environment

NSF's Discovery Files

The ubiquity of plastic materials in modern life has meant that plastic debris can be found everywhere. A subset of these environmental contaminates, smaller than a sesame seed, are called microplastics, and an even smaller subset of those are called nanoplastics. We are joined by Lauren Pincus, an environmental chemist and post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University, to learn about plastic degradation, how it interacts with inorganic materials in the environment and what we might do to help prevent it.