A new scientific review warns that heavy metals, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes are creating a “triple threat” in greenhouse soils, threatening sustainable food production and calling for new control strategies
Experts say these combined contaminants directly endanger soil health, crop quality, and food safety, posing a singular, escalating risk to greenhouse agriculture. They urgently call for new assessment tools and swift action to counter this core threat to sustainable food production.
Focusing on heavy metals, micro- and nanoplastics and antibiotic resistant gene
The review, published in Biocontaminant, explores how composite pollution affects facility agriculture, a rapidly expanding sector that uses greenhouses and other controlled environments for year-round crop production. Researchers focus on three key contaminants: heavy metals, micro- and nanoplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes, which increasingly interact in these intensive farming systems.
Facility agriculture relies heavily on fertilisers, pesticides, plastic films, and animal manure within enclosed environments. This intensive use raises pollutant levels in greenhouse soils compared to open fields, increasing the risk that contaminants will combine and amplify their harmful effects.
The impact of combined pollutants on farming
The review notes that these pollutants rarely occur alone in modern greenhouse soils. Instead, they frequently cluster in regional hotspots, including areas in Europe and East Asia, where they reach concentrations that harm soil organisms, stunt crop growth, and threaten consumers through the food chain. Together, these pollutants inflict more damage than any single contaminant can on its own.
According to the review, ageing greenhouse films can boost soil microplastic levels by 50% or more compared to conventional mulching. Long-term fertiliser use adds residual heavy metals, while animal manure inputs spread resistance genes. These factors create persistent, composite contamination in intensively managed fields.
Researchers found that, at the microscopic level, plastics provide large reactive surfaces where metal ions bind and biofilms form, turning each particle into a mobile platform for chemicals and microbes. Heavy metals and resistance genes often share genetic elements, so metal stress can prompt bacteria to carry antibiotic resistance even in the absence of antibiotics.
Controlling composite contamination in facility agriculture
The review surveys a range of strategies, physical, chemical, biological, and managerial, for tackling composite contamination in greenhouse agriculture. Options include replacing soil, chemically leaching pollutants, remediating with microbes and plants, and improving management practices such as adopting biodegradable films, enhancing manure treatment, and optimising crop rotations.
Each strategy has trade-offs: physical or chemical interventions can effectively address problems but often incur high costs and disruption, while biological and management approaches offer affordable and sustainable solutions that may act more slowly and respond to local conditions. The authors recommend combining greener materials, engineered microbial communities, and precision digital monitoring to create lasting solutions for soil health, food safety, and the broader “One Health” connections among ecosystems, animals, and people.
