Review reveals airborne microplastics transport pathogens and antibiotic-resistance genes across ecosystems, highlighting an overlooked planetary health threat.
Plastics interact with microorganisms in ways that can profoundly affect ecosystems and human health. Despite their global atmospheric presence, microplastic-microbe interactions in air and their planetary health ramifications remain poorly understood. In this review, by synthesizing emerging evidence, we show that airborne microplastics could carry and sustain microorganisms over long distances and timescales, potentially dispersing pathogens, antibiotic-resistance genes, and other bioactive agents across ecosystems—highlighting an overlooked, multisector planetary health threat and research agenda.
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Li et al. (2025) studied this question.
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