The images are sobering: dead sea birds and choking turtles caught in the plastic that is increasingly flooding into marine ecosystems.

In many parts of the world, this type of plastic pollution has grabbed headlines.

Yet there’s a similar environmental blight that gets far less attention but is potentially as harmful, say experts: agricultural plastic pollution. Recent research by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicates that agricultural soils may receive greater quantities of microplastics than oceans.

A byproduct of the slow deterioration of everything from protective mesh to greenhouse panels, this plastic leaches into soils around the world, reducing its quality and often entering the food chain.

With World Soil Day around the corner – it falls on 5 December – experts are raising the alarm about what they call an invisible threat to the world’s food systems.

“Our accounting systems don’t assign a value to healthy soil, so incentives to keep soil healthy are weak,” said Mahesh Pradhan, Coordinator of UNEP’s Global Partnership for Nutrient Management. “Plastic products on farms are really part of the toxic trail of economic growth.”

Plastics in soils is a global problem that usually goes hand-in-hand with intensive agriculture. Experts say it’s present everywhere from Asia to North America to Africa. Stemming the tide will be crucial in the coming years. Researchers estimate that more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced since the early 1950s and the global volume of plastic waste continues to grow.

According to the Global Assessment of Soil Pollution, as the world’s population is expected to rise by 2 billion by 2050, reducing plastic pollution in soil will be key to making progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report, published by UNEP and FAO shows that global food security is being compromised by soil pollution. If not addressed, it will continue to hinder the achievement of the goals related to poverty elimination (SDG 1), zero hunger (SDG 2) and the supply of safe drinking water (SDG 6), amongst others.

Read more please click the link:

https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-plastic-infiltrating-worlds-soils