The 8 billion tons of plastic waste that have amassed on Earth pose a grave and growing danger to human health, according to a new report published in the leading medical journal The Lancet. Ahead of a U.N. conference on plastic pollution, authors warn that countries urgently need to cut production.
The world churns out more than 200 times as much plastic today as it did in 1950, and production is only rising. Microscopic bits of plastic waste have been found nearly everywhere, from the bottom of the sea to the clouds over Mount Fuji, as well as in the food we eat, water we drink, and air we breathe. Scientists have found microplastics in human lungs, brains, and bone marrow, among other organs, as well as in blood, semen, and breast milk.
The Lancet report warns that plastics pose a threat at every stage of their lifecycle, from the extraction of fossil fuels used to make plastic, to the production, use, and disposal of plastic goods. Many of the more than 16,000 chemicals used in plastics — flame retardants, fillers, dyes — can harm human health, and fetuses, infants, and young children are particularly vulnerable.
Plastic chemicals have been linked to low birthweight in infants; obesity and lowered IQ in children; and diabetes, stroke, and cancer in adults. By one estimate, the cost of health damages from just three plastic chemicals — PBDE, BPA, and DEHP — amounts to more than $1.5 trillion a year.
The new report comes ahead of the latest round of negotiations toward a U.N. treaty on plastic pollution, set to begin Tuesday in Geneva. Negotiators failed to reach an agreement last December after a small number of oil-rich nations resisted efforts to limit production.
Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other petrostates see rising demand for plastics as a way to shore up consumption of oil even as electric vehicles curb the use of gasoline. These countries contend the solution to the plastics crisis is to expand recycling, not ramp down production.
But as the Lancet report notes, less than 10 percent of plastic is recycled, while the rest is burned, sent to landfills, or left to accumulate in the environment. And without efforts to stem the use of plastic, production is on track to nearly triple by 2060.
“Unlike paper, glass, steel, and aluminium, chemically complex plastics cannot be readily recycled,” warns the report. “It is now clear that the world cannot recycle its way out of the plastic pollution crisis.”
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