ReviewGlobal challenges (Hoboken, NJ)2020
Microplastics in the Environment: Much Ado about Nothing? A Debate.
Review in Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Micro- and Nano-Plastics in Drinking Water: Threat or Hype? Critical State-of-the-Art Analysis of Risks and Approaches.Journal of xenobiotics · 2025Review
- A Ray of Hope: Gamma Radiation for Microplastic Remediation.Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ) · 2025Article
- Invisible but Insidious Effects of Microplastics.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The potential of micro- and nanoplastics to exacerbate the health impacts and global burden of non-communicable diseases.Cell reports. Medicine · 2024Review
- Article
- Rapid shipboard measurement of net-collected marine microplastic polymer types using near-infrared hyperspectral imaging.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2023Article
- Unfolding the science behind policy initiatives targeting plastic pollution.Microplastics and nanoplastics · 2023Article
- Article
- Understanding the Interplay between Antimicrobial Resistance, Microplastics and Xenobiotic Contaminants: A Leap towards One Health?International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Potential Adsorption Affinity of Estrogens on LDPE and PET Microplastics Exposed to Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluents.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Environmental Degradation of Microplastics: How to Measure Fragmentation Rates to Secondary Micro- and Nanoplastic Fragments and Dissociation into Dissolved Organics.Environmental science & technology · 2022Article
- No short-term effect of sinking microplastics on heterotrophy or sediment clearing in the tropical coral Stylophora pistillata.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Placing nanoplastics in the context of global plastic pollution.Nature nanotechnology · 2021Review
- Addressing the environmental and health impacts of microplastics requires open collaboration between diverse sectors.PLoS biology · 2021Article
- Effects of Different Microplastics on Nematodes in the Soil Environment: Tracking the Extractable Additives Using an Ecotoxicological Approach.Environmental science & technology · 2020Article
- Microplastic regulation should be more precise to incentivize both innovation and environmental safety.Nature communications · 2020Article
- Plastics: From a Success Story to an Environmental Problem and a Global Challenge.Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ) · 2020Article
- Microplastics in the Environment: Much Ado about Nothing? A Debate.Global challenges (Hoboken, NJ) · 2020Review
- Biological conversion of methane to polyhydroxyalkanoates: Current advances, challenges, and perspectives.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2020Review
- Stakeholder analysis with regard to a recent European restriction proposal on microplastics.PloS one · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This article documents a debate between the two authors on the issue of microplastics in the environment. It is sparked by a viewpoint published by G. Allen Burton, who argues that the risk of microplastics is overrated. The authors have started debating this notion on Twitter, but the format has quickly turned out to be too cumbersome to exchange arguments. It is thus decided to continue the conversation by exchanging letters published as preprints in roughly four-week intervals. In these contributions, a broad range of relevant issues are touched upon, including the differences in risk conceptions, risk communication in the attention economy, risk assessment in situations of scientific uncertainty, the need to test proper hypotheses, the problem of prioritizing environmental issues, the costs of action and inaction, the application of the precautionary principle or a strictly evidence-based approach for policy-making and, eventually, larger issues related to the Anthropocene. In hindsight, it is felt that this debate is rewarding because it made possible expressing and reflecting on the values and opinions in ways otherwise impossible in social media and standard scientific articles.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.