Page - 227 - in Freshwater Microplastics - Emerging Environmental Contaminants?

used to producemultiple objects. In the first half of the twentieth century, plastic materials enacted a new way of life: first, durable everyday plastic items, like combs, nylon stockings, radios, and telephones, led to “mass culture”—a“democ- ratization of material goods” [24]. Finally, the translation of plastics from the laboratory to the beverage and food packaging industry paved the way for a “throwawayculture.”Anarticle published in the late 1950s in the journalModern Packagingcaptures theshift fromamaterialconsideredasdurable toanephemeral product: Thebiggest thing that’s everhappened inmoldedplastics so faraspackaging is concerned is theacceptanceof the idea thatpackagesaremade tobe thrownaway.Plasticmoldersare no longer thinking in terms of re-use refrigerator jars and trinket boxes made to last a lifetime.Taking a tip from themakers of cartons, cans andbottles, theyhave come to the realization thatvolume lies in low-cost, single-useexpendability. . .consumersare learning to throw these containers in the trash asnonchalantly as theywoulddiscard apaper cup— and in that psychology lies the futureofmoldedplastic packaging. (n.a. 1957:120 in [25]) Theplasticmaterialwascodedtobebecomewasteafterashortperiodofuse; its use andmeaningwere changed. This newway of consuming and throwing away metamorphosed into anormal feature of ordinary everyday lives, a practice that is taken for granted nowadays [21]. In the last 50 years, plastics have become the workhorsematerialof theglobaleconomyandledtoenormousprogressformodern societies [23]. And that is the dilemma: society benefits from the attributes of plastic products (they are lightweight, inexpensive, and durable), and at the same time, mass production and durability lead to growing amounts of plastic waste accumulating in theenvironment [21,26].Althoughplastichasbeenperceivedasa pollutant for a long time, and environmental awareness continues to grow, the per capita consumptionofpackaging is still increasing [27], so thatwith the increasing accumulationof (micro)plastics, the associated risks are growing. 3 FromMacro toMicro:Unveiling theComplexSide Effects ofPlasticPollution In recent years, scientific andpublicdebates onplastic pollutionhave shifted from the visiblewaste problem tomicroplastics, an invisible form of plastic pollution. Though alreadydetected in seawater in the 1970s [16, 28–33], itwas not until the 2000s that smallplasticparticles,previouslydescribedaspellets, fragments, spher- ules, granules, etc.,were labeled“microplastics” [34],whichpropelled their scien- tificcareer.Since then, thenumberof studieshasgrownexponentially (seeFig.1). With the risingnumberof studies,microplasticshavebeendiscovered inmoreand more ecosystems, whether deep-sea sediments or freshwater environments [35,36].These studieshavedemonstrated thevast extent ofmicroplastic pollution and its ubiquitous and persistent character and accelerated further research on the sources, environmental fate, and biological effects ofmicroplastics.However, the number of studies is not only the result of a growing scientific interest in a “new” Understanding theRisks ofMicroplastics:ASocial-EcologicalRiskPerspective 227