The Leakage of Pigments and Dyes from Plastic and Microplastic Pollution

The creation and industrial development of plastics in the 20th century have revolutionized our lives with its vast and versatile applications. However, plastics have also brought us a concomitant pollution due to their sturdiness and slow degradability; additionally, the large usage of disposable plastic products continues to grow worldwide aggravating the plastic pollution problem, particularly in marine and freshwater. While plenty of efforts exits to investigate and remediate macro- (> 25 mm) meso- (5-25 mm) and microplastics (< 5 mm) pollution from natural environments, less attention has been placed to the faith of pigments and dyes present in all colored plastic debris. Thus, this poster presents an overview on the latest studies and analysis on the decoloring of colored plastics.