The environmental issue posed by the distribution of plastic is largely due to their fragmentation into micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs), which are spread across aquatic, atmospheric, and terrestrial ecosystems. The discovery that these particles can easily accumulate in aquatic organisms and edible plants has rapidly drawn global attention to their potential impact on human health. Therefore, based on the One Health approach, this paper will first provide an overview of soil contamination as well as human exposure routes and toxicity pathways of MNPs. It then describes the significant role of livestock animals as a critical link between soil and human exposure, focusing on the lack of the available literature and on the role of livestock animals as reservoirs and carriers of MNP contamination along the food chain. The lack of a standardized method to detect, quantify, and characterize plastic particles in different matrices prevents the determination of their realistic load. For this reason, the development of a database where researchers can document data, both on MNP characteristics and assessment procedures, is also suggested with the perspective of training, in the future, artificial intelligence (AI) tools capable of predicting the most abundant/dangerous polymer(s) and help in guiding decisions to reduce risks to global health.

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