Pew: Breaking the Plastic Wave

"There's a good reason why the plastics recycling rate has never reached double digits."

"It's because its chemical and polymer complexity makes large-scale recycling technically and economically infeasible."

"We're wasting valuable time by relying on a system that has not worked for decades." 

Judith Enck, president, Beyond Plastics

"One of the most critical solutions will be to lower production of primary plastic to sustainable levels – those at which the amount of waste generated matches what can be managed."

"This balance will also be essential to reducing the global plastic system’s GHG emissions and human health impacts."

"Return- and refill-based reuse systems will be a cornerstone of right-sizing primary production and transforming how businesses and consumers think about and use packaging and other plastic products."

Breaking the Plastic Wave 2025, Pew Charitable Trusts/ICF International 

 

In the manufacture of plastics, some 16,000 different chemicals are used -- more than one fourth of those chemicals have been identified by scientists as possibly harmful to human health. A research wave has made an effort to fully comprehend how a class of chemicals in particular, known as endocrine disrupters widely used in makeup and cookware, may affect digestive, reproductive and cognitive function.

 

Global plastic pollution is set to reach 280 million metric tons annually by 2040. Yet despite clear evidence that plastic particles clog oceans and beaches eventually breaking down into microplastics, plastics are being continually produced and their production rate is set to rise, to the level of a dump truck load every second

 

A report by the Pew Charitable Trusts in conjunction with ICF International, Breaking the Plastic Wave 2025, provided those alarming statistics. Countries that produce the major share of plastic blocked proposals to limit the creation of new plastic regulations, despite discussions meant to forge an international treaty for the purpose of controlling plastic pollution.

 

Data from recent research is compiled to predict outcomes under various policy scenarios in reflection of the fact that recycling rates remain low. This was an initiative by Winnie Lau, director of Pew's Preventing Ocean Plastics project who explained that the research team "wanted to pull it all together in one integrated analysis to look at impacts across the board". 

 

The bleak outlook, warns the report, is that global production of new plastic will increase by 52 percent, to 4.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually. The Pew report authors estimate that the world's population will be absent 5.6 million total years of healthy life in 2025, growing to 9.8 million years by 2040; a grim forecast. As it is, the majority of human health impacts links to cancers and respiratory diseases through primary plastic production.

 

NASA

The Earth as seen from the International Space Station. With global political attention, a commitment of resources and technologies, and strategic policy approaches, plastic pollution can be reduced by 83% by 2040, unlocking significant benefits for both people and the planet.

 

If the Pew version of an appropriate response were to materialize, plastic production subsidies should be eliminated and waste collection expanded. In that scenario, close to 100 percent of consumer packaging could be collected, with recycling rates doubling. Which still leaves the dilemma of microplastics which are more difficult to control since their main source is vehicle tire dust, paint, and agriculture-related products.

 

There are few substitutes for plastic pods in which fertilizer is sold and plastic sheeting used for mulch that dissolve into soil. Beyond Plastics' regional administrator was of the opinion that the Pew report's authors were too optimistic over the growth of plastic recycling, spurred by different regulation policies.  

 

Jeff J Mitchell Getty Images

People walk past overflowing bins and piles of plastic rubbish bags in Edinburgh, Scotland, during a waste workers strike. Without action, by 2040, the amount of plastic produced each year will grow at least twice as fast as waste management capacity.

 

Global Plastic-Embedded Rainfall

"It is raining plastic."
"It wasn't entirely surprising to find them in an urban environment. But when we saw them in the remote areas of the mountain, we started to become a little more surprised at those results."
Gregory Wetherbee study lead researcher, research chemist, U.S. Geological Survey

"We've been collecting snow in places like Whitehorse, Alert and Eureka as well as in southern Ontario and we've found microplastics in all our snow samples, often in microfibre form."
"We've also found them deep in the ocean sediment and in plankton. Everywhere we look, we find it."
"We're finding a good amount especially in the Arctic sediment, since the sedimentation rate [rate by which particles settle down] is quite low versus the lakes."
"It's not a constant source in the Canadian Arctic. There are winds that come from over an urban city where they pick [microplastics] up and transport it to the Arctic. And then in the winter, there is that Arctic haze where you have almost a vortex around that keeps it in."
"While we can say that urban centres are sources, we can't pinpoint. The atmosphere doesn't obey national boundaries, it just goes where it wants."
Liisa Jantunen, researcher, analytical environmental analyst, Environment Canada

@start_stoling

"In my lab, we might spend about 40 percent of the time doing method development, which I would love to not have to do." 
"It's similar to the way we talk about persistent organic chemical pollutants in that it seems as if they're everywhere because they have this ability to transport everywhere."
"They have chemicals on them that can bioaccumulate and are toxic."
Chelsea Rochman, researcher, marine ecosystems, University of Toronto

A plastic bag floats in Lake Ontario on the waterfront in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on Wednesday, June 12, 2019. Justin Trudeau’s government announced plans Monday to ban single-use plastics such as straws and plates in Canada. Cole Burston/Bloomberg

The last two years of research have informed that plastic is raining down in Canada; which is to say rain falling in Canada has minuscule amounts of microplastic within each raindrop and no one has any idea where it has come from or what the final results of its presence will wreak on the environment, much less the plants and animals, including humans. This was an accidental discovery that occurred while geologists were researching the effects of nitrogen pollution and discovered tiny plastic fibres, beads and shards within samples of rainwater collected from Denver, Colorado's Rocky Mountain National Park, a distance of 1,763 kilometers from Canada.

This is a new area of research that has fairly recently opened; the presence of plastic particles smaller than five millimetres in length -- about the size of a breadcrumb -- but research has revealed an incredibly wide distribution area of plastic pollution in the most remote corners of the Earth. Dr. Jantunen's research into microplastics in the Canadian Arctic and Great Lakes was initiated in 2017 and she accepts the survey's discovery of plastic raining down to be just another aspect of the level to which the planet is inundated with plastic.

It makes common sense that microplastic presence is higher in urban environments like the city of Toronto than it would be in remote regions, due to the numerous sources creating and consuming plastic. Included are laundry clothes dryers and vacuum cleaners which produce microfibres like lint and dust, points out Dr. Jantunen. The further one removes from urban centres, the less the pollution concentration. Dr. Jantunen estimates that for every gram of (Arctic) sediment up to hundreds of microplastic particles could be present, and for each litre, hundreds to thousands of particles.

European researchers discovered earlier this year the presence of tiny plastic fibres in the French Pyrenees mountain regions carried, it appears, by the wind, estimating that France is "blanketed by 2,000 tons of plastic particles" annually. Alarmingly high concentrations of microplastics were discovered by Swiss researchers -- as high as 14,000 particles per litre of snow samples in the Arctic snowfields -- a report published this month details.

When larger pieces of plastic degrade minuscule microplastics eventually result which are buoyant, readily transportable through the atmosphere, and through water systems. No one knows of a certainty where these microplastics are arriving from but evidence in the Canadian Arctic suggest some could originate in Toronto; on the other hand it could just as well be coming from Europe. Identification is difficult in determining where microplastics originate as a result of the lack of technology able to analyze the evidence, points out Dr. Rochman, a researcher in plastic pollutants in freshwater and marine ecosystems.

Not only is there a mystery surrounding the origins of the microplastics insinuating a presence worldwide, but little is also known relating to the potential toxicity of microplastic pollution. Basically, because of their infinitesimally small size, microplastics are capable of entering biochemical pathways within the body. They have been known as "carriers of medication" in mainstream medicine, and little is known yet whether they have any effect or are simply excreted, discarded by the body.

GoranH | Pixabay

Plastic, Plastic Everywhere

"This is the first study of its kind and confirms what we have long suspected, that plastics ultimately reach the human gut."
Dr. Philipp Schwabl, researcher, gastroenterologist, University of Vienna

"Absolutely it is worrying. Plastics are everywhere and all pervasive. Some biologists have suggested they could make their way into the bloodsrream and move around the body and also be a vector for transporting contaminants and other pollutants."
"We still need basic research on what the impacts will be."
"This year we have seen a tipping point on plastics in the environment, politically, culturally and socially. I think those plastics have been there a long time but we are just discovering this now because somebody has decided to look."
Professor James Woodward, Manchester University, department of geography

"The human consequences of exposure to these microplastics are largely unquantified."
"It is unknown if mocroplastics ingestion translates into meaningful exposure in the population. Nevertheless, the burden in the environment should not be further increased."
Professor Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer, Great Britain

"I'm not really surprised. It's only when you start working with microplastics you realize how abundant they are. There are so many sources of plastic."
"It's in the air all around us and our synthetic clothing is constantly shedding fibres."
Alex McGoran, marine biology researcher

"I've been studying this for 20 years and we've certainly shown microplastics are present everywhere we have looked."
"What is really needed is more information about low dose chronic exposures. There is really very little known about effect on humans at all. It is harder to look for it in humans, but also harder to understand potential harm."
Richard Thompson, Plymouth University

Scientist looking through microscope in laboratory. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Microplastics have been found in human stools for the first time, according to a study suggesting the tiny particles may be widespread in the human food chain.

How can it after all, come as a surprise that breakthrough research has now been discovered to have identified the fact that microplastics have invaded our bodies since it is present everywhere, including the food we eat, the water we drink, the clothing we wear, the furniture we use and all the disposable bits and pieces of plastic housewares and conveniences? It took new research emanating from the Austrian Environment Agency in conjunction with the University of Vienna to bring it to world attention.

They undertook to analyze stool samples from eight people out of different countries, to discover when their study was completed that yes indeed, microplastics have finally moved to the top of the food chain; ourselves. The sample is acknowledged to be relatively small in size, but its conclusion provides unequivocal evidence of microplastics detected for the first time resident in human beings since each and every sample studied revealed the presence of microplastics. Nine different types of plastic were found in just one sample alone.

Bottled water drinkers are also sipping on tiny plastic bits. 

REUTERS/David Gray

The researchers found on average 20 microplastic particles per 10g of human waste and their presentation of their findings at the annual United European Gastroenterology meeting has created quite a stir. Though the situation whereby humans have been discovered to host plastic particles in their bodies has long been considered inevitable given our indiscriminate production and use of plastics in just about everything, the next logical step is to try to determine how injurious their presence will be, in the final analysis.

The particles are minuscule, less than 5mm in size, and the general concern is that their invasion within the entirety of our environment could be responsible for a host of as yet uninvestigated health and fertility situations. Little evidence exists at the present time for any deleterious effect on the globe's human population but the fears are there and they have presence, along with the microplastics that have invaded our bodies; will they wreak damage on the immune system, trigger inflammation, result in toxins like mercury or pesticides lodging within us?

Microplastics are not just showing up on beaches like this one in the Canary Islands — a very small study shows that they are in human waste in many parts of the world.  Desiree Martin/AFP/Getty Images

An estimated 8.3 billion tons of plastic is known to have been created globally since the late 1950s heralded its mass production. Of that mass, 80 percent has accumulated in landfill or the general environment where more than a thousand years is required to degrade it; in the meantime, trillions of microplastics and particles have been found in oceans, fish, tap and bottled water, and table salt as well -- as when scientists recently tested 39 different salt brands from sixteen countries to discover that 90 percent held microplastics.

Studies have been conducted looking for a link between plastics and endocrine-disrupting chemicals within the plastics resulting in an increase in testicular and breast cancer along with a decrease in sperm counts. Microplastics have been discovered traversing the host mother through to the placenta in pregnancies. Intelligence points to fish consumption as the likely source of plastics, yet two of the eight test subjects in the Austrian study hadn't consumed fish at all during the week when the research took place.

And then there is this: the concerns of scientists relating to human health impacts of nanoplastics; invisible particles representing the degradation of microplastics. These infinitesimally tiny plastics have the ability to penetrate cells and to move into tissues and organs. As yet there is scant research into the foreseeable problems.

A grey mullet is shown next to microplastic found in Hong Kong waters during a Greenpeace news conference in Hong Kong, China, on April 23, 2018.

Bobby Yip/Reuters