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It\u2019s all about timescale. Microplastics do keep breaking down, but as the pieces get smaller, the decomposition rate slows. Most microplastics form when bigger bits of plastic break down in the environment, aided by sunlight, oxygen and friction. Microbes can also play a part in decomposition, depending on the type of plastic.<\/p>\n
With all of these processes, the microplastics can continue to break down to form nanoplastics, which have diameters below one micrometre or one-thousandth of a millimetre. These are invisible to the naked eye and hard to detect using analytical kit, which is perhaps why we don\u2019t hear about them so much.<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n Asked by: Charlotte Lowe, St Austell<\/strong><\/p>\n To submit your questions email us at questions@sciencefocus.com (don\u2019t forget to include your name and location)<\/em><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Emma Davies Published: Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 12:00 am It\u2019s all about timescale. Microplastics do keep breaking down, but as the pieces get smaller, the decomposition rate slows. Most microplastics form when bigger bits of plastic break down in the environment, aided by sunlight, oxygen and friction. Microbes can also play a part […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":262,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down.jpg",1200,536,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down-300x134.jpg",300,134,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down-768x343.jpg",768,343,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down-1024x457.jpg",800,357,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down.jpg",1200,536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2021\/11\/why-dont-microplastics-keep-breaking-down.jpg",1200,536,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Emma Davies Published: Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 12:00 am It\u2019s all about timescale. Microplastics do keep breaking down, but as the pieces get smaller, the decomposition rate slows. Most microplastics form when bigger bits of plastic break down in the environment, aided by sunlight, oxygen and friction. Microbes can also play a part…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/261"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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