Microplastics. In every living organism. — Roldano De Bastiani's Casbah

In a few decades, plastic has entered everything: objects, clothes, food, air. Microplastics — solid particles under 5 millimetres, insoluble and persistent — have become a kind of invisible solid smog contaminating seas, rivers, soil, atmosphere and the food chain. They have been found in human tissue, marine organisms, agricultural soil and freshwater. There is no longer an ecosystem free of them.

There are two types. Primary microplastics are intentionally produced small: microspheres in cosmetics and detergents, glitter, granules for artificial sports pitches. Secondary ones arise from the degradation of larger objects: packaging, fishing nets, synthetic textiles, tyres. The main European sources are not just bags and bottles, but tyre abrasion on road surfaces, washing of synthetic-fibre garments, and granules from artificial grass pitches.

Once released, they circulate between water, air and soil — and end up on our plates. The cycle is closed and global.

In marine ecosystems many species ingest them, mistaking them for food, with effects on nutrition, growth, reproduction and tissue inflammation. The particles move up the food chain carrying chemical additives and pollutants absorbed on their surface.

For human health the picture is still developing. We know that micro and nanoplastics reach us through food, water and air, and have been found in various human tissues. The mechanisms of possible harm — inflammation, oxidative stress, hormonal interference — are documented in many experimental studies. Quantifying the risk for humans is still ongoing. Exposure is certain. The signals are worrying. Quantitative certainties have yet to consolidate.

The European Union has acted. Regulation (EU) 2023/2055 introduces restrictions on the sale and use of products with intentionally added microplastics: exfoliating cosmetics with microspheres, plastic glitter, granules for synthetic pitches. Progressive bans, labelling requirements, incentives for alternative materials. In parallel, work is underway on less abrasive tyres, filters for domestic washing machines, and standards for water treatment plants.

Faced with such widespread pollution, the temptation is to give up. Some concrete choices exist — reducing single-use plastic, preferring natural fabrics, avoiding cosmetics with microbeads — but the decisive part remains political and industrial. The microplastics already dispersed will remain for a long time: we cannot clean up the planet to the last particle. We can however turn off the tap, drastically reducing new emissions.

The ecological transition is not only about CO₂. It is also about chemistry, materials, the plastic cycle. The question is whether we will be capable of turning this apparently technical issue into one of the political frontiers of our time.

A material problem, not a moral one

Microplastics are not the result of "bad behaviour" by distracted individuals, but the coherent product of an industrial model built on cheap oil, single-use objects and externalised costs. The fact that today we breathe, eat and drink plastic is a physical reality, not a metaphor: it marks the point at which consumer society literally penetrates our tissues.

This is why the response cannot be reduced to an appeal to consumer goodwill: we need policies that ban what can be banned, make costly what is currently "easy" for industry, fund research and conversion towards different materials, and make those who generate externalities pay for them. What is at stake is not only the protection of ecosystems, but also an idea of material democracy: who decides what ends up inside our bodies, and under what rules?

— R.D.B., May 2026