A rising tide of microplastics is threatening to destroy environments across the globe.

The warning was issued by scientists which called for urgent action to avoid irreversible ecological damage by stemming the tide of microplastics entering the environment.

The team added climate change conditions turn plastics into more mobile, persistent, and hazardous pollutants. This is done by speeding up plastic breakdown into microplastics – microscopic fragments of plastic – spreading them considerable distances and increasing exposure and impact within the environment.

This is set to worsen as both plastic manufacturing and climate effects increase. Global annual plastic production rose 200-fold between 1950 and 2023.

The authors, from Imperial College London, called for the elimination of non-essential single-use plastics (which account for 35% of production), limiting virgin plastic production, and creating international standards for making plastic.

“Plastic pollution and the climate are co-crises that intensify each other. They also have origins – and solutions – in common,” said lead author Prof Frank Kelly, from Imperial’s School of Public Health. “We urgently need a coordinated international approach to stop end-of-life plastics from building up in the environment.”

The researchers conducted a comprehensive review of existing evidence that highlights how the climate crisis worsens the impact of plastic pollution.

Rising temperatures, humidity, and UV exposure all boost the breakdown of plastics. Furthermore, extreme storms, floods, and winds can increase fragmentation as well as dispersal of plastic waste – with six billion tons and rising – into landfill, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, atmospheric environments, and food webs.

They added there are growing concerns about the persistence, spread, and accumulation of microplastics that can disturb nutrient cycles in aquatic ecosystems, reduce soil health, and crop yields. They also adversely affect feeding, reproduction, and the behaviour of organisms that are capable of ingesting them, should levels exceed safe thresholds.

Microplastics can also act as ‘Trojan horses’ to transfer other contaminants like metals, pesticides, and PFAS ‘forever chemicals’. Climatic conditions may also enhance the adherence and transfer of these contaminants, as well as the leaching of hazardous chemicals such as flame retardants or plasticizers.

“There’s a chance that microplastics – already in every corner of the planet – will have a greater impact on certain species over time. Both the climate crisis and plastic pollution, which come from society’s over-reliance on fossil fuels, could combine to worsen an already stressed environment in the near future,” said co-author Dr Stephanie Wright from Imperial’s School of Public Health.

The team said the evidence showing increased amounts, spread, and harm of microplastics adds further impetus to calls for urgent action on plastic pollution.

The researchers explained we must rethink the whole approach towards using plastics in the first place.

“A circular plastics economy is ideal. It must go beyond reduce, reuse, and recycle to include redesign, rethink, refuse, eliminate, innovate, and circulate — shifting away from the current linear take–make–waste model,” said co-author Dr Julia Fussell from Imperial.

According to Wright: “The future will not be free of plastic, but we can try to limit further microplastic pollution. We need to act now, as the plastic discarded today threatens future global-scale disruption to ecosystems.”