ArticleScience advances2026
A pioneering plastic particle footprint concept for addressing the challenges posed by plastic pollution.
Article in Science advances, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
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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
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Persistent plastic micro- and nanoparticle (MNP) pollution poses a serious threat to global health. Yet they typically cannot be considered in conventional life cycle assessments (LCAs), which weakens decision-making. To avoid waiting for consensus on the MNPs' fate and impacts required by LCA, an innovative framework has been developed to conservatively estimate the plastic particle footprint (PPF), i.e., the total MNP emissions during the plastic's lifetime of an item, up to the very long-term fate. Reporting the PPF as an elementary flow alongside other indicators shows to improve the ability to weigh up the alternatives' benefits. Applying the calculation to four everyday items-kettles, crates, beverage containers, and T-shirts-radically changes the best material option for the three of them whose carbon footprints are close. This also raises trade-off questions such as: Are the 280 grams of greenhouse gas emissions saved by using a reusable plastic crate instead of a wood crate worth the 21 grams of additional MNP pollution?
Identifiers
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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.