Microfiber pollution and its microbial mitigation: A review on current trends and future prospects

Background: Synthetic Microfiber pollution poses a significant rising threat to the environment and human health. During manufacturing, use, and disposal at the end of their useful lives, textiles release microfibers into the environment. Microfiber pollution poses a potentially significant and rising risk to the environment, necessitating safeguards and sustainable growth in the textile and fashion sectors. Methods: Annually, around 9 million tonnes of microfibres are produced, with 60% being synthetic and 25% being non-synthetic or natural. During the washing of synthetic clothes these microfibres fleece are released and discharged into municipal water streams and end up in rivers and marine ecosystem. These emerging pollutants are being underestimated during environmental impact assessments various aquatic ecosystems, leading to potential widespread of damaging contaminant. Microfiber waste management through biological and chemical approaches has been evaluated for the treatment of these pollutant. The present biological approaches focus upon microbial degradation of synthetic pollutants in the natural environment. Significant findings: In this review, we deliberated the recent advances on microfiber pollution and its microbial mitigation and elaborately describes the sources of microfibers in aquatic, the harmful effects of microfiber pollution on environment and human health. Moreover, the manuscript the mechanism of microbial remediation of microfiber pollutants, the factors affecting the bioremediation process, novel strategies for microfiber waste treatment and conclusively discussed different approaches of sustainable microfiber waste management.