Nanoplastics-The Hindu-23-09-2022

GS-3
ENVIRONMENT
What do you mean by Nanoparticles ?
Extremely small pieces or particles of plastic resulting from the disposal or breakdown of plastic products and constituting debris or pollution, especially in a marine environment.
Researchers have developed a new, metallic fingerprint-based method to detect and measure
amount of nanoplastics in organisms.
Researchers exposed lettuce plants to nanoplastics from commonly found plastic waste in
environment — polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) nanoplastics.
Nanoplastics are tiny plastic debris particles smaller than 1,000 nanometre (1 nm is equal to one
billionth of a metre).
It can lead to cell damage and inflammation in humans; growth impairments, larval
deformities and other toxic effects in marine organisms.