In the year 2004, the global research community started a new chapter of pollution research. It was that year when professor Richard Thompson (also known as the godfather of microplastics) and colleagues published an article in Science that first used the term in a scientific publication.
The paper was groundbreaking, because it opened a new chapter of research and since then, over 7.000 scientific papers werep ublished about microplastics and its effect on nature, animals and (maybe most importantly) people.
In Thompson's paper the term microplastic was first used to describe microscopic fragments of plastic debris (~20 µm in diameter). And it was this article that showed us that these tiny plastic fragments were present in coastal regions around UK and eastern US seaboard. And, more importantly, the paper showed that the amount of microplastics has increased substantially since the 19060s. The paper also showed evidence of microplastics in invertebraes and fish, and also specualted about the harmful effects of microplastics.
In late 2024, 20 years after, professor Tompson and colleagues published another paper: Twenty years of microplastic pollution research—what have we learned?
The article focuses on what we have learned in 20 years: from the definition of microplastics, to their sources, impact on nature and humans, the ecological risks they pose and the daners to human health, also touching on the subject of detection of microplastics and what the future brings in the field.
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