Damage, lung fibrosis, neurological damage, suppressed immune system, etc.) (forbid et al. 2011 ). human health effects are contributing to app. 200,000-270,000 premature deaths per year worldwide (velis and cook 2021 ). while several studies have addressed the risk of these emissions to human health, much less information is avail- able on their phytotoxicity. plants are unwillingly exposed for shorter or longer periods, still potential damage posed by pm emission of waste burning has been very rarely addressed. as such, the main aim of the study was to evalu- ate phytotoxicity of pm emission from controlled burning of the following common plastic waste types: polyvinyl chloride (pvc), polyurethane (pur), polypropylene (pp), polystyrene (ps) and polyethylene (pe). these particles bind potentially toxic compounds, of which heavy met- als and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (pahs) are the most frequently addressed. pahs originate from incomplete combustion processes which are quite typical considering burning conditions (wu et al. ). atmospheric pahs are divided into gas and particle phases: those with less molecu- lar weight are volatile and can be detected in the gas phase while those with high molecular weight will typically be absorbed by particulates (ayyildiz and esen 2020 ). these compounds pose the highest risk by producing reactive oxy- gen species (ros) (simões et al