Plastics Are Seeping Into Farm Fields, Food and Eventually Human Bodies. Can They Be Stopped?

By MELINA WALLING and RODNEY MUHUMUZA

9:11 PM EDT, March 29, 2025

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — In Uganda’s Mbale district, famous for its production of arabica coffee, a plague of plastic bags locally known as buveera is creeping beyond the city.

It’s a problem that has long littered the landscape in Kampala, the capital, where buveera are woven into the fabric of daily life. They show up in layers of excavated dirt roads and clog waterways. But now, they can be found in remote areas of farmland, too. Some of the debris includes the thick plastic bags used for planting coffee seeds in nurseries.

Some farmers are complaining, said Wilson Watira, head of a cultural board for the coffee-growing Bamasaba people. “They are concerned – those farmers who know the effects of buveera on the land,” he said.

Around the world, plastics find their way into farm fields. Climate change makes agricultural plastic, already a necessity for many crops, even more unavoidable for some farmers. Meanwhile, research continues to show that itty-bitty microplastics alter ecosystems and end up in human bodies. Scientists, farmers and consumers all worry about how that’s affecting human health, and many seek solutions. But industry experts say it’s difficult to know where plastic ends up or get rid of it completely, even with the best intentions of reuse and recycling programs.

According to a 2021 report on plastics in agriculture by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, soils are one of the main receptors of agricultural plastics. Some studies have estimated that soils are more polluted by microplastics than the oceans.

“These things are being released at such a huge, huge scale that it’s going to require major engineering solutions,” said Sarah Zack, an Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Great Lakes Contaminant Specialist who communicates about microplastics to the public.