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> プラスチック **に** は体に悪い物質が付きやすいため、魚などがプラスチックを食べると、その魚を食べる動物や人にも悪い影響が出る心配があります。  
>  As for plastic, because bad materials easily stick in the body, there is a
> worry that if fish eat plastic it will also have a bad effect on the people
> and animals who eat those fish.

I can't understand the purpose of the に in bold at the start of this sentence.

Can it be omitted without changing the meaning?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-11T07:59:14.760
44300
2017-03-11T09:44:21.500
7944
question
grammar particle-に
Meaning of に in プラスチック**に**は体に悪い物質が付きやすいため
You seem to have failed to parse this sentence correctly. Treat 体に悪い物質 as one
set here.

> プラスチック **には** [体に悪い物質] **が** 付きやすい…  
>  [Substances which are bad for your body] easily stick to plastic, ...

AがBに付く is a common way to say "A sticks to B," and it's not the body but
plastic that bad substances stick to. So に after プラスチック is just "to" as in
"stick to ～", and に after 体 is "for" as in "bad for ～".

The topicalizer は always replaces が/を, but it doesn't usually replace に/へ. See
[this](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/7006/5010).

You can omit に in this case without changing the meaning. But I wouldn't do so
because this section is relatively complicated and omitting に may make it a
bit harder to understand. See: [When do you use は/に for
どようびは/に?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/8269/5010)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-03-11T09:39:14.447
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2017-03-11T09:44:21.500
2017-04-13T12:43:44.157
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answer