What are microplastics?
Microplastics are typically defined as particles less than 5 mm in size.
As our technology and monitoring methods have improved, new size categories have been defined to better describe the range of particle sizes that exist in the environment.
This includes nano-plastics, which are typically <1 mm, but can be substantially smaller. For example, recent advances have enabled researchers to detect particles as small as 20 nanometers (approximately 4,000x smaller than the width of a single strand of human hair).