Author Archives: David Evans

“All spheres” of the Arctic, from seafloors to rivers to remote areas of ice and snow, are now littered with “high concentrations” of waste plastics, scientists have said – and the situation is worsening.Large quantities of plastic waste and microplastic particles are now being transported to the Arctic by oceans, rivers, shipping and air, according to the research team from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany.The huge quantity of plastic entering the world’s oceans and eventually ending up in the most remote places not only directly impacts ecosystems, but it could also exacerbate the climate crisis in the Arctic, the scientists said.This is because dark-coloured plastic particles could absorb more heat than snow and ice, and any suspended microplastics in the air could cause condensation – which then may cause additional rain, melting ice and snow.The research team said the Arctic Ocean has become a major plastic repository. Despite making up one per cent of the total volume of the world’s oceans, it receives more than 10 per cent of the global discharge from the world’s rivers, which carry plastic into the ocean.Today, virtually all marine organisms investigated, from plankton to sperm whales, come into contact with plastic debris and microplastics. And this applies to all areas of the world’s oceans, from tropical beaches to the deepest oceanic trenches.“The Arctic is still assumed to be a largely untouched wilderness,” says AWI expert Dr Melanie Bergmann.“In our review, which we jointly conducted with colleagues from Norway, Canada and the Netherlands, we show that this perception no longer reflects the reality.“Our northernmost ecosystems are already particularly hard hit by climate change. This is now exacerbated by plastic pollution. And our own research has shown that the pollution continues to worsen.”The researchers said their findings “paint a grim picture”. Although the Arctic is sparsely populated, in virtually all habitats – from beaches and the water column, to the seafloor – it shows a similar level of plastic pollution as densely populated regions around the globe.As well as rivers flowing into the Arctic Ocean, the pollution also stems from ocean currents from the Atlantic and the North Sea, and from the North Pacific over the Bering Strait. Tiny microplastic particles are also carried northward by wind.The plastics are then caught and swirled around the top of the globe. When seawater off the coast of Siberia freezes in the autumn, suspended microplastics become trapped in the ice. The Transpolar Drift current then transports the ice floes to Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard, where it melts in the summer, releasing its plastic cargo.The scientists said some of the biggest local sources of pollution are municipal waste and wastewater from Arctic communities and plastic debris from ships, especially fishing vessels, whose nets and ropes pose a serious problem. Either intentionally dumped in the ocean or unintentionally lost, they account for a large share of the plastic debris in the European sector of the Arctic: on one beach on Svalbard, almost 100 per cent of the plastic mass washed ashore came from fisheries, according to an AWI study.“Unfortunately, there are very few studies on the effects of the plastic on marine organisms in the Arctic,” said Dr Bergmann.“But there is evidence that the consequences there are similar to those in better-studied regions: in the Arctic, too, many animals – polar bears, seals, reindeer and seabirds – become entangled in plastic and die.“In the Arctic, too, unintentionally ingested microplastics likely lead to reduced growth and reproduction, to physiological stress and inflammations in the tissues of marine animals, and even runs in the blood of humans.”Speaking about the potential feedback loop which plastic debris could cause, and thereby exacerbate the climate crisis, the team said research remains “particularly thin”.“Here, there is an urgent need for further research,” said Dr Bergmann.“Initial studies indicate that trapped microplastics change the characteristics of sea ice and snow.”As well as absorbing heat and altering precipitation, the researchers said throughout their lifecycle, plastics are currently responsible for 4.5 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions.“Our review shows that the levels of plastic pollution in the Arctic match those of other regions around the world. This concurs with model simulations that predict an additional accumulation zone in the Arctic,” said Dr Bergmann.“But the consequences might be even more serious. As climate change progresses, the Arctic is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. Consequently, the plastic flood is hitting ecosystems that are already seriously strained.“The resolution for a global plastic treaty, passed at the UN Environment Assembly this February, is an important first step. In the course of the negotiations over the next two years, effective, legally binding measures must be adopted, including reduction targets in plastic production.”The team also called on European countries to slash their levels of plastic waste, and called for stronger controls on fishing gear entering oceans.The research is published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment.

“Plastic pollution is very present in all spheres of the Arctic—no nice, white wilderness anymore.”
[Photos: Citizen of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images, Nathan Yough/Unsplash]
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An emerging domain of research shows that plastic consumption and pollution harms human health — particularly for the world’s lower-income communities.This builds on a growing field of research revealing the dangers of plastic on the environment — especially marine ecosystems. Of the over 8 billion tons of plastic produced since the 1950s, less than 10 percent has been recycled.“Plastic threatens human health at every stage of its production pipeline — from the extraction of the fossil carbon, oil and gas, that is plastic’s main constituent, to its manufacture, use and disposal,” said Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Observatory on Pollution and Health and lead author of the Lancet Commission on pollution and health.The connection between plastics and health was also highlighted in Africa by researchers from Stanford and the Technical University of Mombasa. After decades of hunting for mosquito-borne viruses in coastal Kenya, they received one of their greatest tips from a group of elementary schoolchildren.The scientists had been trying to uncover the breeding grounds of mosquitoes causing a number of illnesses that regularly sicken over half of Kenya’s coastal population — including dengue, chikungunya and others that can cause severe fevers, headaches, rashes, joint pain, life-threatening bleeding and death.With these diseases on the rise, researchers were teaching schoolchildren about the life stages and habitats of insects that serve as vectors. On a homework assignment to find immature forms of mosquitoes in their communities, the children discovered something unexpected — disease-carrying mosquitoes breeding in nests of plastic trash around their homes.“We were astounded,” said Stanford pediatrician and researcher Desiree LaBeaud, who led the project. “The children’s discovery helped us realize that the majority of mosquitoes were breeding in plastic trash and other containers littering streets and people’s yards.”The world created about 8 million tons of pandemic plastic waste, and much of it is now in the oceanEnvironment and healthIt made sense: Plastic is watertight and can take hundreds of years to break down, creating a perfect habitat for mosquitoes. This groundbreaking discovery built on other recent findings connecting environmental degradation to human health — including the health effects of wildfire smoke, heat stress and the risk of pandemics caused by deforestation and other ecological disruptions. With climate change driving an increase in mosquito-borne illnesses, the need to limit their breeding grounds felt more important than ever to the researchers.“We realized that we needed to look far beyond just treating the sick,” said LaBeaud, who is senior author on an upcoming publication in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases on the topic. “To stop these diseases at their source, we needed to tackle the plastic problem.”Plastics are closely tied to climate change, which the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) has recognized as “one of the most pressing existential threats to human health,” in the words of NAM President Victor J. Dzau. Plastics use the same amount of oil as the entire aviation industry — and are expected to more than triple in their oil consumption in the next 30 years.Moreover, the pollution caused by petrochemical plants — which are most often in lower-income settings — threaten the health of communities. “Plastic manufacture is inequitably distributed, with virtually all plastic production facilities located either in low- and mid-income countries or in poor and minority communities within high-income countries,” Landrigan pointed out.EPA just detailed all the ways climate change will hit U.S. racial minorities the hardest. It’s a long list.After plastic products are released into the environment, they can break down into smaller pieces of plastic known as microplastics. While more research is needed, some findings suggest these virtually ubiquitous tiny plastic particles — that have been found in human blood — have the potential to disrupt immune and endocrine systems, damage organs, cause inflammation, increase cancer risk and possibly affect pregnancy outcomes.Disposing of plastic waste also poses challenges. In places such as sub-Saharan Africa, as much as three quarters of all waste is burned, releasing toxic compounds and carcinogens into the air.The infectious-disease research in coastal Kenya is a critical new dimension. Plastic pollution is exacerbating an already dire public health challenge — over 50 percent of people in coastal Kenya are regularly exposed to dengue and chikungunya, and at least 10 percent of febrile illness in the region is probably because of undiagnosed mosquito-borne viral infections. This pattern seems to be widespread — similar findings have emerged in South America and Asia.The problem is not only the potentially deadly diseases themselves. With symptoms for some illnesses such as chikungunya lasting for up to months or years, getting sick could also mean missing school and days of work — and communities being kept in poverty, creating what some scholars call the “disease-poverty trap.”“The case of plastics vividly illustrates how the industrial practices of the high-income world are intimately tied to the health and development of lower-income communities around the globe,” LaBeaud said. “Maintaining a healthy planet requires thinking carefully about how we produce, consume, and waste — knowing that downstream health impacts, especially on marginalized communities, won’t always be immediately apparent.”From national parks to the deep sea, plastic pollution is showing up wherever scientists lookFighting a growing problemCombating the plastic pollution in Kenya and other African countries involves addressing both exported recycling from high-income countries and an influx of new plastic products, especially single-use materials.Kenya, along with 95 other countries, received more than 1 billion pounds of foreign plastic waste from U.S. exporters in 2019 alone. This roughly equates to a line of 18-wheeler semi-trucks full of plastic trash backed up for about 350 miles, stretching nearly the entire length of Florida. And it’s not just plastic trash imports — Nairobi also saw a quadrupling in plastic consumption over the same 25-year period that its population only tripled.In response, Kenya banned single-use plastic bags in 2017 and banned all single-use plastic in protected natural sites in 2020. This is part of a larger movement to reduce plastic waste in Africa. The African Union, for example, has set a goal that 50 percent of waste used in African cities be recycled by 2023.Communities across Africa have also started exploding with locally designed solutions — exploring opportunities to rethink waste management and recycling in ways that also support local economies.For example, LaBeaud and Kenyan partners launched a nonprofit organization, HERI-Kenya, to engage policymakers, communicate the plastic-disease connection, and build business opportunities that allow for more locals to make a living collecting and recycling trash. This, they hope, can build the foundation for what is known as a circular economy for plastics, where the reuse and recycling of materials create a sustainable system of zero waste.“When we remove plastic litter, we not only improve local environments — we improve human health, beautify our community, support local entrepreneurs and boost tourism,” said Francis Mutuku, a researcher at the Technical University of Mombasa and LaBeaud’s long-term collaborator. “Everyone stands to gain.”Yet, despite the will to act, activists and lawmakers in Africa have found that the solution is not as simple as recycling or banning plastics.One way to tackle our huge plastic pollution problem: Turn it into fuelWith fossil fuels increasingly falling out of favor, actors such as the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and large oil companies are reportedly moving toward a new strategy, opting to turn oil into plastics and distribute them to external markets, including countries in Africa. While the ACC has denied efforts to undermine bans on single-use plastics in places such as Kenya, many of the companies it represents are still expanding their production and distribution of plastics.Oil and chemical companies were reportedly planning to spend an estimated $400 billion on expanding plastics production as the biggest anticipated driver of oil demand — up to 95 percent by some forecasts — from 2020 to 2024, according to a 2020 Carbon Tracker analysis. From reporting around that same time, almost 350 new chemical plants were being planned in the United States alone.In 2019, Chevron Phillips Chemical, a joint venture partially owned by Chevron, called petrochemical collaborations with Qatar Petroleum, now called QatarEnergy, “some of the safest and most successful assets in Chevron Phillips Chemical’s global portfolio” — including a new $8 billion project to develop a Gulf Coast petrochemical plant.“From delivering fresh water and preventing food waste to supplying medical products used every day in hospitals worldwide, our materials help people live prosperous and healthy lives,” Chevron Phillips Chemical said in an emailed statement.Chevron’s 2021 annual report noted that petrochemical projects on the Gulf Coast and in Qatar were ongoing. In a March presentation to investors, a Chevron executive said that demand and margins for petrochemicals are expected to continue to grow over the long term.“With growing recognition around the negative health and environmental consequences of plastics, we do need to ask — why produce more?” Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health Director Michele Barry said. “Where are these new chemical plants being built, and which communities are the intended recipients of these products?”Beyond recyclingRecycling is one of the most talked-about solutions for the plastics crisis.“ACC supports scaling up advanced recycling,” said Stewart Harris, senior director of Global Plastics Policy at the ACC, in an email, referring to recycling technology that breaks down used plastics into their basic building blocks to create new, often reusable, products. “Since 2017, 70 advanced recycling projects representing over $7 billion in investments have been announced or are already operating.”A wide range of companies have begun to invest in improved waste collection and recycling — for example, Chevron Phillips Chemical’s investments in circular plastics and Coca-Cola’s PETCO campaign in southern and eastern Africa.“We encourage responsible disposal of PET packaging and recycling of the same to create a circular economy, which has an economic impact on those involved throughout the recycling value-chain,” said Scott Leith, a spokesperson for Coca-Cola, who acknowledged that the challenge of plastic waste requires multiple approaches.While some local community organizations, such as Clean Up Kenya, have criticized Coca-Cola’s approach, advocates have noted that initiatives such as this one could allow simultaneous improvements in waste infrastructure, financial incentives for collectors and worker safety.“Partnerships between governments and the private sector are critical to achieving universal access to waste collection, which forms the foundation of a circular economy,” said Harris, in an emailed statement. Other groups such as the Alliance to End Plastic Waste are also trying to engage a variety of companies and organizations to accelerate community-engaged solutions.Do you wishcycle? If so, you’re actually not helping to recycle.Yet researchers and policymakers have pointed out that recycling is no silver bullet, because of limitations in recycling capability and the environmental costs of producing plastics in the first place.Moreover, according to a recent Reuters analysis, plastic recycling itself is forestalled by ongoing production: “Less than 10% of plastic is recycled, partly because new plastic produced by the oil industry is so plentiful and cheap.” For context, the $7 billion investment in recycling cited by the ACC is less than 2 percent of the $400 billion Carbon Tracker’s 2020 analysis ascribed to expanding upstream plastics production.Kenyan activists, including Clean Up Kenya, are calling for more comprehensive upstream solutions — including banning single-use plastic bottles overall.A 2020 report by SYSTEMIQ frames plastic collection and recycling as just one dimension of a strategy to reduce 80 percent of plastic pollution by 2040. Other critical channels of action noted in the report include reducing plastic consumption, substituting materials, redesigning products, securely disposing of the near-quarter of plastic that cannot be recycled — and, particularly relevant to Kenya’s plastic challenges, reducing “waste exports into countries with low collection and high leakage rates by 90%.”“There is an urgent need to simultaneously rein in plastic production and use in countries at every level of income,” Landrigan said.In line with this, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed on March 2 to begin writing a global treaty that would restrict the expansion of plastic use. Industry members such as Coca-Cola and the ACC have signaled support for such a treaty in emailed and online statements, saying it would provide needed certainty to industries.At the same time, some nongovernmental organizations have expressed concern about the treaty’s lack of global regulations. The ACC’s Harris has said his organization does not support overall caps on plastic production, contending that plastics play a necessary role in providing critical medical services. Health and environmental researchers, however, worry about the enabling of ongoing petrochemical expansion — and the health risks this brings.“We can’t recycle our way out of our global plastic problem,” Barry said. “Without a fundamental reimagining of global industrial practices, we will continue to see dire impacts on the climate, the planet and our health.”Erika Veidis serves as the planetary health program manager for the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, where she leads the Action Lab for Planetary Health, a program focused on moving Stanford environmental and health research to solutions.Jamie Hansen serves as communications manager for the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, helping to amplify the work of the center and its fellows through storytelling and multimedia communications.

Share on PinterestMIcroplastics’ newest vessel, according to new research, is human blood. pcess609/Getty ImagesScientists have been concerned about possible harm from microplastics for many years.In a new study, researchers developed a method of detecting microplastics in human blood.The scientists found microparticles of four common plastics in blood samples from 17 out of 22 healthy adults.Further research could determine whether microplastics in the blood will impact health.Plastics are everywhere. Although, in theory, much of it can be recycled, a lot of it ends up in landfills, or worse, in watercourses and marine ecosystems.Many people are too familiar with distressing images of turtles and dolphins trapped in plastic bags or fishing nets. But there is a less visible effect — microplastics, tiny plastic particles formed when plastics break down and during commercial product manufacturing. Several studies have found evidence of plastics in the human body. One revelation came after scientists detected plastic additives such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates in human urine. Researchers have also found microplastics in human feces. However, until now, no published study has directly examined the effect of these tiny plastic specks on human health.In a new study published in the journal Environment International, researchers in the Netherlands developed a method of analyzing human blood to detect microplastics. They then used this method to analyze blood from 22 healthy volunteers.Microplastics are specks of plastic. By definition, they are less than 5mm in any dimension, but many are invisible to the naked eye. There are two types of microplastics: primary microplastics and secondary microplastics. The former are the particles used in some cosmetics, and the latter comes from the breakdown products of larger plastic items.Much concern about microplastics has previously focused on their effect on the marine environment, as they are found in oceans worldwide. Many marine organisms, such as fish and shellfish, have been found to contain microplastics. “It’s highly probable given the prevalence of microplastics in air, water, wildlife, the food chain, that they will also be entering the human body, but the technical difficulties of measuring microplastic particles in the human body has made it hard to confirm this.”– Prof. Tamara Galloway, chair in ecotoxicology at the University of Exeter, the U.K.For this study, the researchers looked for particles that could be absorbed across membranes in the human body. They filtered the blood to collect any plastic particles between 700 nanometers(nm) and 500,000nm. To avoid any plastic contamination, the researchers used glass fiber filters.The researchers looked for five common plastics: The samples from the filters were processed by double-shot pyrolysis to produce chromatograms from which scientists could identify the contents.“Human biomonitoring methods for measuring plastics additives have been available for several years […] But measuring microplastics, especially at the small size that would likely circulate in blood vessels (7 microns), is very hard,” Prof. Galloway told Medical News Today.“This paper is good news because it describes a method that is sensitive enough to do this in blood samples and combines size fractionation and mass measurements,” she added.More than three-quarters of the blood samples contained a quantifiable mass of plastic particles. The researchers found PET — which most drinks bottles are made from — in the blood of more than half of those tested. They did not detect PP in any of the samples.Researchers found at least 3 different types of plastic in some blood samples.Prof. Galloway was unsurprised by the findings: “The fact that just about everyone has microplastic in their blood isn’t so surprising when you consider that just about everyone has plastics additives in their bodies.”The researchers suggest several ways the plastics may have entered the bloodstream — via air, food, water, personal care products such as toothpaste and lip gloss, dental polymers, and tattoo ink residues. What happens to the microplastics once they enter the bloodstream is unclear.In vitro studies have shown the effects of microplastics on cells. A recent study in Germany found that microplastic particles can destabilize lipid membranes — the barriers that surround all cells — which may affect their functioning. Another study found that microplastics had many effects on cells, including cell death.The current study was based on a sample size of only 22 people, so the authors stress the need for further research: “It remains to be determined whether plastic particles are present in the plasma or are carried by specific cell types.” However, they believe that “[i]t is scientifically plausible that plastic particles may be transported to organs via the bloodstream.”What effect they might have on organs is, as yet, unknown.