The DOI matches its Crossref record; 186 of the 189 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
An overview of chemical additives present in plastics: Migration, release, fate and environmental impact during their use, disposal and recycling
Open accessAbstract
Over the last 60 years plastics production has increased manifold, owing to their inexpensive, multipurpose, durable and lightweight nature. These characteristics have raised the demand for plastic materials that will continue to grow over the coming years. However, with increased plastic materials production, comes increased plastic material wastage creating a number of challenges, as well as opportunities to the waste management industry. The present overview highlights the waste management and pollution challenges, emphasising on the various chemical substances (known as "additives") contained in all plastic products for enhancing polymer properties and prolonging their life. Despite how useful these additives are in the functionality of polymer products, their potential to contaminate soil, air, water and food is widely documented in literature and described herein. These additives can potentially migrate and undesirably lead to human exposure via e.g. food contact materials, such as packaging. They can, also, be released from plastics during the various recycling and recovery processes and from the products produced from recyclates. Thus, sound recycling has to be performed in such a way as to ensure that emission of substances of high concern and contamination of recycled products is avoided, ensuring environmental and human health protection, at all times.
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“However, the mechanical stability of recycled plastics within asphalt that is exposed to solar radiation is difficult to determine because of the complex composition of these composite materials [181].”
From Environmental consequences of interacting effects of changes in stratospheric ozone, ultraviolet radiation, and climate: UNEP Environmental Effects Assessment Panel, Update 2024 (2025) · cites this paper as [181]
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“The release of toxic additives into the food from the plastics packaging and the presence of potentially toxic substances 49 further increases the need to implement stricter regulations in plastics additives production and trade.”
From Complexities of the global plastics supply chain revealed in a trade-linked material flow analysis (2025) · cites this paper as [49]
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Citations
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
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Metadata
- Authors
- Hahladakis, J. N., Velis, C. A., Weber, R., Iacovidou, E., & Purnell, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Leeds (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Velis, Costas A.
- Venue
- Journal of Hazardous Materials
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2018-02
- Volume
- 344
- Pages
- 179-199
- ISSN
- 0304-3894 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2761590587
- Cited by
- 3,873
- References
- 189
- Citations by year
- 2026: 488 · 2025: 618 · 2024: 682 · 2023: 596 · 2022: 546 · 2021: 451 · 2020: 294 · 2019: 139 · 2018: 57
- FWCI
- 6.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Hazardous Materials (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- Brunel University Research Archive (BURA) (Brunel University London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council
- National Eye Research Centre
- Natural Environment Research Council
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Microplastics and Plastic Pollution
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Polymers and Plastics › Polymer Science and PVC
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Recycling and Waste Management Techniques
- Keywords
- polymer additives, chemical migration, plastic waste management, plastic recycling, food contact materials, food packaging, environmental contamination, human exposure, environmental impact of plastics
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