What does "microplastic" mean?

Small particles of plastic (typically less than 5 mm) produced by the degradation of plastic products, found in high levels in the marine environment and increasingly throughout all environments and in food and drinks.

Microplastic

adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
Small particles of plastic (typically less than 5 mm) produced by the degradation of plastic products, found in high levels in the marine environment and increasingly throughout all environments and in food and drinks. countable, uncountable
"Huge amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics now contaminate the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans."

Adjective

1
Exhibiting microplasticity. not-comparable

Example

More examples

"Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic used in many products to help clean skin or teeth. They are a kind of microplastic, which are pieces of plastic less than 5 millimeters in size."

Etymology

From micro- + plastic.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.