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Sunday, September 15th, 2019

Worms fail to thrive in soil containing microplastics – study

Author:     Fiona Harvey
Source:    
Publication Date:     Wed 11 Sep 2019 19.01 EDT
 Link: Worms fail to thrive in soil containing microplastics – study
Stephan:   You have probably read a lot about microplastics in the ocean and the ocean's ecosystem. Well, the situation is much worse. Microplastics are also becoming an issue in farm soil. If we don't stop making plastics from petroleum we are going to pollute the earth and ocean, if we have not already done so, in a way that devastates everything from farms to fish.

An earthworm emerges from the ground.
Credit: Ben Birchall/PA

Worms fail to thrive in earth containing microplastics, new research has shown, adding to the growing body of evidence of impacts from the increasingly widespread contaminants on the natural world.

The rosy-tipped earthworm, Aporrectodea rosea, is one of the most common found in farmland in temperate regions. Scientists found that worms placed in soil loaded with high density polyethylene (HDPE) – a common plastic used for bags and bottles – for 30 days lost about 3% of their body weight, compared with a control sample of similar worms placed in similar soil without HDPE, which put on 5% in body weight over the same period.

Bas Boots, lecturer in biology at Anglia Ruskin University, and lead author of the study, said the specific reasons for the observed weight loss were not yet clear, but could be owing to the effects of microplastics on the worms’ digestion. “These effects include the obstruction and irritation of the digestive tract, limiting the absorption of nutrients and reducing growth,” he […]

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2 Comments

  1. Rev. Dean on Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 8:41 am

    It makes me wonder where the plastic comes from. Is it from the water or from the nutrients added to the soil? I would like to test my soil, because I have had some trouble with certain plants growing properly this year and other ones last year, too.

    • Will on Monday, September 16, 2019 at 5:36 am

      Hi Rev. Dean hope you are well. A recent study in Colorado has found microplastics in rain and think the wind is carrying it up in the atmosphere.

      Plastic is such a useful material that the market demands more so Shell Oil is spending $1.65 billion on the biggest construction project in the country that will use fracked gas to make more plastic. It is in Pa and will open in the early 2020s.

      So insane that instead of developing new tech to recycle current plastic waste “the market” demands a huge new source to increase that waste. This is an economic system that demands that the gas gathered from very destructive processes must be used asap because the damn market forces demand it. What dreadfully primitive times we live in.