Triple threat in greenhouse farming: how heavy metals, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes unite to challenge sustainable food production

(Press-News.org) Invisible pollutants in high tech greenhouses may be quietly reshaping the food on our plates and the soil beneath our feet. A new open access review maps how heavy metals, micro and nanoplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes increasingly pile up together in intensive “facility agriculture” and why this triple cocktail demands urgent attention from scientists, farmers, and regulators.

The paper reviews composite pollution in facility agriculture, a fast growing form of high yield farming that relies on greenhouses and other controlled environments to produce vegetables and other crops year round. The authors focus on three typical contaminants heavy metals, micro and nanoplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes that now frequently co occur and interact in these systems.​

Facility agriculture uses large amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, plastic films, and animal manure, all within relatively enclosed spaces. Over time this leads to much higher levels of pollutants in greenhouse soils than in open fields and increases the chance that different contaminants will combine and reinforce each other rather than acting alone.​

Why composite contamination matters The review shows that heavy metals, microplastics, and resistance genes rarely appear in isolation in modern greenhouse soils. Instead they cluster in regional hotspots such as parts of Europe and East Asia and can reach levels that affect soil organisms, crop growth, and eventually consumers through the food chain.​

When these pollutants combine, their joint effects can be more harmful than the impact of each pollutant on its own. For example, microplastics can carry heavy metals and resistance genes deeper into soil or into plant tissues, while heavy metals can speed up the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistance in soil microbes.​

Key findings on risks and mechanisms According to the review, microplastics from aging greenhouse films can raise soil microplastic levels by roughly half or more compared with conventional mulching, while long term fertilizer use increases residual heavy metals and animal manure inputs fuel the expansion of resistance genes in soil. Together these factors create a persistent “composite contamination” background in intensively managed fields.​

At the microscopic level, plastics provide large reactive surfaces where metal ions can bind and biofilms can form, turning each particle into a mobile platform for both chemicals and microbes. Heavy metals and resistance genes often occur on the same genetic elements, so metal stress alone can favor bacteria that also carry resistance to antibiotics, even when antibiotics are not present.​

Gaps in current risk assessment The authors argue that current pollution indices and health risk models were mostly designed for single pollutants and struggle to capture the combined ecological and health risks of multi pollutant exposure. Existing tools can estimate contamination levels or human health risks but rarely consider dynamic interactions among multiple contaminants across soil, water, crops, and air at the same time.​

They call for new multi scenario assessment frameworks that integrate data from several models, follow pollution over time, and link numerical indices directly to real world outcomes such as crop performance, soil function, and local health indicators.​

Towards cleaner and safer greenhouse farming The review also evaluates physical chemical, biological, and management based strategies that could help control composite contamination in facility agriculture. Options range from soil replacement and chemical leaching to microbial and plant based remediation and smarter field management using biodegradable films, improved manure treatment, and optimized crop rotations.​

Each strategy has trade offs: rapid physical or chemical interventions can be effective but costly and disruptive, while biological and management approaches are often cheaper and more sustainable but slower and sensitive to local conditions. The authors suggest that combining greener materials, engineered microbial communities, and precision digital monitoring could offer more sustainable long term solutions for protecting soil health, food safety, and the broader “One Health” links between ecosystems, animals, and people.​

 

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Journal reference: Fan Z, Li R, Ding Y, Yang Q, Liu W, et al. 2025. Composite contaminations dilemma in facility agriculture: pollution characteristics, risk assessment, and sustainable control strategies. Biocontaminant 1: e023  

https://www.maxapress.com/article/doi/10.48130/biocontam-0025-0024  

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About Biocontaminant:
Biocontaminant (e-ISSN: 3070-359X) is a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to advancing fundamental and applied research on biological contaminants across diverse environments and systems. The journal serves as an innovative, efficient, and professional forum for global researchers to disseminate findings in this rapidly evolving field.

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