New chemical coating on plastics makes them turn into a completely biodegradable wax in soil. The study reports no adverse effects for soil microbes/life.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41529-026-00817-5

Microplastics adversely affect plant growth besides harming animal life. Up until this study, there hasn’t been a scalable solution.

(Study by Malaysia’s Standards and Industrial Research Institute (Sirim), Imperial College London and biotechnology firm Polymateria)