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Researchers modeled the journey of microplastics released in wastewater treatment plant effluent into rivers of different sizes and flow speeds, focusing on the smallest microplastic fragments — less than 100 microns across, or the width of a single human hair.The study found that in slow-flowing stream headwaters — often located in remote, biodiverse regions — microplastics accumulated quicker and stayed longer than in faster flowing stretches of river.Microplastic accumulation in sediments could be the ‘missing plastic’ not found in comparisons of stream pollution levels with those found in oceans. Trapped particles may be released during storms and flood events, causing a lag between environmental contamination and release to the sea.A few hours in stream sediments can start to change plastics chemically, and microbes can grow on their surfaces. Most toxicity studies of microplastics use virgin plastics, so these environmentally transformed plastics pose an unknown risk to biodiversity and health. Tiny fragments of plastic can linger for years in slow flowing streams and rivers, according to the results of a computer modeling study published in Science Advances last month.
As tributaries and rivers flow from source to estuary, through rural, urban and industrial landscapes, they have lots of opportunities to pick up plastic fragments and carry them to the ocean, but we still know relatively little about what happens along the way, how long this turbulent journey might take, or what the environmental impacts may be.
“There are a lot of physical processes that take place in a stream,” said lead author Jennifer Drummond, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Plastic bags litter a river bank in Europe. Photo credit: Ivan Radic on VisualHunt.com
Models of microplastic transport that take into account gravitational forces alone predict that very small particles will stay afloat and be carried swiftly to the ocean. But small fragments can also be influenced by the dynamics of water movement at the interface between flowing water and sediment, called the ‘hyporheic’ zone. Plastic particles can be carried downwards from the surface by turbulence, while small variations in pressure can force water into the sediments, depositing microplastics there. These exchanges between flowing water and river sediments are “the piece that was missing,” from previous explanations of microplastic transport, Drummond explained.
The researchers modeled the journey of microplastics released from wastewater treatment into rivers of different sizes and flow rates, focusing on the smallest microplastic fragments — less than 100 microns across, or the width of a single human hair — which are most strongly influenced by pressure differences between the surface water and the hyporheic zone. They found that heretofore ignored hyporheic exchange processes can draw microplastics into the sediments at rate of 5% per kilometer (8% per mile) on average.
“This kind of exchange hadn’t been modeled and accounted for previously, and it seems to be an important one,” said Sherri Mason, Director of Sustainability at Penn State Erie in Pennsylvania, U.S., who was not involved in the study. A deeper understanding of hyporheic processes, “moves us closer to having better global accounting of where all of the plastic is,” she added.
Particles embedded in sediments will remain trapped as long as the river flow stays relatively low, and the model showed that for a 10 kilometer stretch of river, they could spend 30 hours on average, and up to 3 years in the sediments. Slower-moving streams and headwaters captured more microplastics and for longer: 8% of plastic particles entered these river sediments per kilometer and low-flow conditions could keep them there for up to 7 years. This suggests that storms and flood events, which are becoming more severe and more frequent as a result of climate change, could trigger the release of millions of accumulated fragments of microplastic from river sediments.
Microplastics range in size from 5mm to tens of microns across. The smallest fragments, less than 100 microns, were thought to pass along rivers quickly to the sea because of their buoyancy. But modeling shows that small scale water dynamics can drive these particles into sediments and trap them there for long periods of time. Image credit: Oregon State University on VisualHunt.
Remobilized microplastics might end up deposited on flood plains as storm waters retreat or be carried onwards downstream to the ocean. “The time in between [floods] will really determine how much [plastic] is remobilized versus how much can stay and accumulate,” explained Drummond.
The team noted that the rate of microplastic accumulation in the model agreed closely with a published dataset from the Roter Main River in Germany. Sediment cores collected downstream of a wastewater plant there contained between 4,500 and 30,000 plastic fragments smaller than 50 microns across for every kilogram of dried sediment, close to the model’s prediction of 10,000 – 50,000 particles per kilogram.
“This is an important and sophisticated piece of research that helps us understand the processes involved in the accumulation of microplastics on riverbeds,” said Jamie Woodward, professor of physical geography at the University of Manchester in the UK. He praised the study’s focus on microplastics smaller than 100 microns, explaining that “the finest microplastics may pose the most serious ecological risk.”
Microplastics originate in a variety of sources, including degrading plastic bottles and other packaging, fragments from synthetic clothing, as well as industrial effluent and agricultural waste that make their way through wastewater treatment plants or via runoff to tributaries, rivers, and eventually the ocean. Image credit: Ivan Radic on Visualhunt.com.
Finding the missing plastic
Sediment-bound microplastics could be the source of so-called ‘missing plastic’ identified in comparisons of the rate of plastic release from known sources with measurements of microplastic contamination in the oceans. “It’s been postulated that some of that missing plastic is probably in sediments,” said Mason, and this study confirms that hyporheic exchange is a mechanism that can pull very small microplastic fragments into the sediment and hold them there for hours or days.
Even a few hours in the sediment can fundamentally change a plastic particle: chemical processes can start to break them into smaller fragments or convert them into gases, and they can become food or territory for living organisms. “Many different chemicals and microbes can attach to these plastic particles,” explained Drummond, and the smaller the particle, the larger the surface area for microbes and chemicals to attach.
To insects and fishes living in and around the rivers, microbe- and chemical-laden plastic particles can look like an appetizing snack. “The channel bed is a critical part of the riverine ecosystem where many creatures live, feed and reproduce,” said Woodward. “If the riverbed is contaminated with microplastics, there is a high chance that some of those microplastic particles will enter the food chain.”
The Roter Main River in southern Germany is a major Rhine tributary. Sediment cores collected downstream of a wastewater plant contain 4,500 – 30,000 microplastic fragments per kilogram, agreeing closely with the present study’s modeled predictions. Image credit: Public domain by GertGrer on Wikimedia.
Wastewater treatment plants, like this one in Moscow, Russia, are a major source of microplastic pollution flowing into rivers because many particles are too small to be filtered out. The researchers modeled the journey of microplastic particles from these consistent sources to understand how small scale water dynamics affected microparticle movement. Image credit: A.Savin on Wikimedia Commons.
But how much that might impact wildlife or people is uncertain. Much of our understanding of how microplastics affect living organisms comes from laboratory studies of virgin plastic that hasn’t undergone these chemical and biological changes. “By the time they reach the ocean, [the plastic particles] are different,” said Drummond, and “it’s these environmentally transformed plastics,” that are lingering in freshwater ecosystems and eventually being carried to the ocean, posing an unknown risk to freshwater and marine biodiversity.
Headwaters are often in more remote, high biodiversity regions, but their slow-flowing waters are more likely to drive microplastics into the sediment and keep them there for longer. This means “there’s more time for these particles to really incorporate into the environmental matrix,” said Drummond, with potential knock-on effects for the entire food chain.
“The quality of the riverbed environment affects the whole riverine ecosystem,” remarked Woodward. “The longer these particles are stored in this environment, the greater the risk.”
Plastics can take hundreds of years to fully decompose. The United Nations is meeting this month to begin developing a global plastics waste treaty. Ivan Radic on Visualhunt.com.
Plastic pollution has helped push us over a planetary boundary
Globally, our indulgent use and disposal of plastics has now exceeded safe levels, helping to push us past a planetary boundary for chemical pollution and potentially setting the Earth life support system on a path towards a new, less habitable state.
In addition, it’s believed that overshooting one planetary boundary can destabilize another, like a line of falling dominoes: Escalating climate change — an already infringed planetary boundary — is bringing with it more severe and frequent extreme weather events, which could have complex effects on microplastic transport and retention in rivers. More intense and frequent droughts will reduce stream flows, depositing more microplastic fragments into sediments where they can make their way into the food chain, with potentially unforeseen consequences for the biodiversity planetary boundary. Conversely, increasingly common and severe storms and floods can remobilize those trapped fragments — and any microbes or chemicals attached to their surface — allowing them to be carried to the ocean, where they may impact marine life.
Sediment-trapped microplastics will continue to extend the lag between environmental contamination in rivers and release of pollutants into the ocean, which could slow clean-up efforts. “If we were to stop all plastic production today, how much longer are we going to be seeing this stuff leaching into the environment?” Mason questioned. “There’s always a delayed reaction when it comes to the environment.”
“It really makes you think,” said Drummond, “Every time you’re using plastic, it very likely ends up in your rivers and it’ll be there for a very, very long time.”
Citation:
Drummond, J. D., Schneidewind, U., Li, A., Hoellein, T. J., Krause, S., & Packman, A. I. (2022). Microplastic accumulation in riverbed sediment via hyporheic exchange from headwaters to mainstems. Science advances, 8(2), eabi9305. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abi9305.
Banner image: Plastic waste has become ubiquitous in the global environment since the years following World War II. Photo credit: Ivan Radic on VisualHunt.com
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Headwaters of Pennsylvania’s Lehigh River in the U.S. Headwaters are often found in remote and biodiverse regions, but the study’s model suggests they are particularly vulnerable to accumulating microplastics because of their low flow conditions — with unknown impacts on life there. Image credit: Nicholas_T on Flickr.

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In October 2021, a Belgian environmental inspector opened a container at the port of Antwerp that, according to its manifest, was supposed to contain bales of mixed paper waste from Canada.It was one of 20 containers from the Saint-Michel recycling centre in Montreal that were destined for India. “Oh it really stinks!” said Marc de Strooper, taken aback by the stench of garbage. As he looked closer, de Strooper found a mess of broken glass, old clothes, metal debris, broken toys and used medical masks. He also saw paper bales that contained a large quantity of difficult-to-recycle plastic bags. “Canada is known as a beautiful country with lots of nature lovers. I don’t understand how they can produce garbage like this,” de Strooper said. He stopped the containers from moving on to their destination and they still sit at the port. Canada has become one of the biggest exporters of recyclable paper to India — with Quebec and the city of Montreal sending much of their mixed paper waste to that country. An investigation by Radio-Canada’s Enquête shows that much of what is supposed to be paper actually contains tonnes of plastic bags, some of which litter the Indian landscape, and are often burned as a source of fuel. A wrapper from a package of soft drinks sold in Canada has made its way to India.

If a scientific opinion recently proposed by European officials is upheld, the recommended daily dose of bisphenol-A, or BPA, in Europe will be more than a million-fold lower than what U.S. regulators say is safe.And the change in accepted exposure would all but ensure the chemical cannot be used in any food contact products. “There’s nothing different about the physiology of an American compared to a European,” Laura Vandenberg, a professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health & Health Sciences, told EHN. “So, if it’s hazardous in Europe, it’s hazardous for us.”A significant gap already existed between the European Union and the U.S. in what regulators considered a safe dose of the plastic additive commonly used in everything from can linings to plastic water bottles. The draft opinion, released in December by the European Food Safety Authority, or EFSA, is “just moving it all the way to the left,” said Vandenberg. She added that their conclusion is “very solidly backed up by science,” and, in fact, has been now for at least a decade.“And it’s really different compared to the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration],” she said.BPA is an endocrine disruptor, meaning it alters the proper functioning of our hormones, and is linked to a host of health problems, including cancer, diabetes, obesity, reproductive, nervous and immune system impacts, and behavioral problems. Scientists like Vandenberg have published studies on such health effects for decades.So, that begs the question: How can two major regulatory bodies look at the science and come to such vastly different conclusions? Where is the disconnect?

Different approaches to testing BPA impacts

BPA testing in the lab of Cheryl Rosenfeld, a University of Missouri researcher. (Credit: Cheryl Rosenfeld)

Historically, the U.S. FDA has leaned almost exclusively on so-called “guideline” studies in determining what amount of exposure to traditional toxics—whether that’s lead or PFAS (perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances) or BPA—is safe for people. These studies are typically done by government scientists and follow a prescription for everything from the type of animal to use to how long the animal is exposed. There is also a standard set of endpoints such as the weight of the organs.

This prescription was based on assumptions made decades ago about how toxic chemicals affect the body. Not all of these assumptions have stood the test of time, including the idea that a chemical’s toxicity is always proportional to the dose of exposure. In fact, research finds that sometimes a relatively high dose of some hormone-mimicking chemicals can prove innocuous for a given endpoint while a far lower dose wreaks havoc on the body.

Academic scientists tend to take a different, more investigative approach. They might look at changes in specific regions of the brain, or for alterations in behavior. All told, academics have published thousands of peer-reviewed studies, many of which have found negative health effects of BPA¾even at very low doses.

In their assessment of BPA, EFSA went beyond guideline studies and considered evidence from academics, including many epidemiological studies and other laboratory-based studies that didn’t follow the standardized formula. Edward Bray, a spokesperson for the agency, noted that the key study driving their decision was published in 2016 by a team of academic scientists in China. That data linked BPA exposure in lab mice to an increase in the number of a type of immune cell, which can lead to the development of allergic lung inflammation.

“We need to acknowledge that if another agency has looked at these data and is drawing a conclusion that’s intended to protect public health, then we’re the ones who are behind,” said Vandenberg. “We’re the ones who aren’t being protective enough in the U.S.”

Many U.S. health professionals want to change that: last month, a group of scientists, doctors, and environmental and health organizations petitioned the FDA to review the safety of BPA and to remove or restrict approvals for the chemical in light of the European recommendations.

Maricel V. Maffini, a consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund, was among the signees of the petition. The agency is obligated to respond to the petition within 180 days, she told EHN. If they deny the petition, “they have to explain themselves,” said Maffini.

“Clarity” on BPA elusive in U.S. 

The ripple effects of EFSA’s move could be great. Many U.S. manufacturers produce products to be sold worldwide. If they want to keep the European market, and the proposal goes through, they will need to meet the new, more stringent limits. Experts also believe that this move could lead to tighter regulations in the U.S. “I think this is going to put enormous pressure on the FDA. It’s about time,” Pat Hunt, a geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash., told EHN. In an emailed statement to EHN, the FDA said that their “regulatory decisions remain grounded in the robust evaluation of the totality of the available science on the use of food additives, including substances used in food packaging.” The agency noted that they had yet to complete their review of EFSA’s draft proposal.Jennifer Garfinkel, director of product communications for the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers, told EHN that they, too, are currently analyzing the draft.“BPA is one of the most widely studied chemicals used today,” she added in an emailed statement. “In 2018, the [FDA] published its findings from the Clarity Core Study, the largest study ever conducted on BPA. This study along with many others confirmed that BPA is safe at the very low levels to which consumers are exposed.”Importantly, the study that Garfinkel referenced was part of a larger collaboration on the health effects of BPA: the Consortium Linking Academic and Regulatory Insights on BPA Toxicity, or Clarity. The unprecedented multimillion-dollar project was the subject of a four-part series published in November 2019 by EHN that found the FDA stacked the deck against such findings from independent scientists studying BPA – as well as many compounds used in “BPA-free” products. Clarity aimed to synthesize a traditional regulatory study from the government and investigational studies from academics. The “core study” was the government’s contribution. Meanwhile, the studies published by academics showed health consequences—such as mammary gland cancer, kidney damage, increased body weight, and altered gene expression in the brain—after exposures to exceptionally low doses BPA. And when Vandenberg and her colleagues, all not involved in Clarity, took a close look at the government’s core study results, they identified 41 endpoints with statistically significant effects, too. A final 122-page “compendium of published findings” was released by the government in October, which summarized and collated all of the government and academic findings. It did not attempt to integrate or interpret those findings.However, when the draft of the Clarity Core Study was published in 2018, the FDA released a statement highlighting the agency’s interpretations: they wrote that the study supported their ongoing stance that “currently authorized uses of BPA continue to be safe for consumers.” The statement made no mention of significant findings of effects at low doses of BPA in both the Core Study and in the peer-reviewed studies from academic collaborators that had been published by that time.

BPA alternatives excluded 

Among the hazard endpoints identified by EFSA is actually one from the Clarity Core Report. Still, most of the information they used came from academic studies, noted Maffini. “They used everything they could get their hands on,” she said. “So, the spectrum of information was very different from what the FDA usually looks at.”Bray confirmed that EFSA considered all the Clarity studies, including the academic contributions, in coming to their conclusion. Also, while EFSA’s mandate was to look solely at BPA, Bray added that, moving forward, the agency did recommend the collection of data on the use of BPS—a BPA alternative that has been linked to similar health impacts—in plastic food contact material, as well as its presence in and migration into food.The European rule would only apply to food and beverage contact materials, and not the other uses of BPA such as in-store receipts and dental sealants. It also would not apply to a growing list of replacements, such as bisphenol-S (BPS). Many such chemical cousins are now regularly used in popular products labeled as BPA-free.“The rest of them are just as bad, some are even worse,” said Hunt. “This is insidious business.”EFSA is accepting public comments on the draft proposal until February 22. Once finalized, the assessment will inform decisions taken by EU risk managers in the European Commission, European Parliament and member states.Banner photo credit: Guillaume Périgois/Unsplash

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A new WWF report says the fossil-fuel derived substance “has reached every part of the ocean.” The wildlife group is calling for creating an international treaty on plastics.
Wildlife group WWF said on Tuesday that plastic has infiltrated all parts of the ocean, calling for urgent efforts to create an international treaty on plastics. According to a report published by WWF, 88% of marine species are affected by severe contamination of plastic in the ocean. The report said that many animals have ingested these plastics, including animals commonly consumed by humans. WWF has indicated that at least 2,144 species suffer from plastic pollution in their habitat. Pictured are piles of garbage at Tanjung Burung Beach, Indonesia What did the report say? The report, which was written in collaboration with Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute, compiles data from 2,590 scientific studies on the topic. It measures the impact of plastic and microplastic in the ocean. Gigantic “plastic islands,” made up of floating pieces of plastic, have been found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The report found that the fossil-fuel derived substance “has reached every part of the ocean, from the sea surface to the deep ocean floor, from the poles to coastlines of the most remote islands and is detectable in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale.”  WWF has indicated that at least 2,144 species suffer from plastic pollution in their habitat, and some of these species also end up ingesting these materials. This is the case of 90% of marine birds and 52% of turtles, according to the report. WWF warned that plastic content has been found in shellfish like blue mussels and oysters, and a fifth of canned sardines contain these particles. The report predicts that plastic production will double by 2040, which will cause a fourfold increase in plastic waste in the ocean. This will affect an area that is two and a half times the size of Greenland, according to WWF. WWF said that some of the most threatened marine areas are the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and the Mediterranean. These areas have already reached the limit of how much microplastic they can absorb. Erik Lindebjerg said that the main factor in plastic pollution is the prevalence of single-use plastics What is the cause of the pollution? WWF expert Eirik Lindebjerg said that although fishing is a major contributor to marine pollution, the main factor is the prevalence of single-use plastics. “Due to the fact that plastic has got cheaper, manufacturers produce large quantities of it and this has allowed them to develop single-use products that later end up becoming waste,” Lindebjerg said. According to Lindebjerg, some places face a risk of “ecosystem collapse” that affects the entire marine food web. Lindebjerg called for a massive decrease in plastic pollution, saying that the amount of plastic pollution marine ecosystems can absorb is limited. “We need to treat it as a fixed system that doesn’t absorb plastic, and that’s why we need to go toward zero emissions, zero pollution as fast as possible.” The WWF is calling for talks aimed at drawing an international agreement on plastics at the UN environment meeting, held from February 28 to March 2 in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. It wants a treaty to establish global production standards and real “recyclability.” sdi/fb (AFP, Efe, dpa) 

KALBA, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The hawksbill sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, its shell ashen and stomach taut.A week ago, the adolescent turtle washed up on a beach in Kalba, a city on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates. Once unspoiled, the coast of mangrove trees is now fouled by piles of trash dragged from nearby landfills. Strewn across the shore are plastic bags, packages, bottle caps — and far too often, dead turtles.At first, Fadi Yaghmour, a marine expert who has examined some 200 turtles for the first research on the subject from the Middle East, extracted typical fare from the carcass — squid beaks and oysters.Then, a culprit for the creature’s demise became clear: shriveled balloons and plastic foam, some of the last things the turtle ate.“It’s probably malnourished,” Yaghmour told The Associated Press last week as he worked. Plastic clogs turtles’ intestinal tracts, he said, and can cause them to starve.ADVERTISEMENTThis turtle is one of 64 retrieved from the shores of Kalba and Khor Fakkan, in the wider emirate of Sharjah, to be analyzed in Yaghmour’s lab. His team of researchers have published a new study in the Marine Pollution Bulletin that seeks to document the damage and danger of the throwaway plastic that has surged in use around the world and in the UAE, along with other marine debris. When discarded, plastic clogs waterways and chokes animals — not just sea turtles but whales, birds and all sorts of life. A staggering 75% of all dead green turtles and 57% of all loggerhead turtles in Sharjah had eaten marine debris, including plastic bags, bottle caps, rope and fishing nets, the study found. The only other research from the region, published in 1985, found that none of the studied turtles in the Gulf of Oman had eaten plastic.“When the majority of sea turtles have plastics in their bodies, you know you have a significant problem,” Yaghmour said. “If there’s ever a time to care about turtles, it is now.”Turtles may have survived the mass extinction that killed off dinosaurs millions of years ago, but today they’re disappearing around the world.Hawksbills are critically endangered, according to the World Conservation Union, and green and loggerhead species are endangered. The three species are found in the Persian Gulf’s warm, shallow waters, as well as the Gulf of Oman on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz.Skyrocketing amounts of litter pollute the world’s environment, with a seminal study in Science Advances five years ago estimating that 12 billion metric tons will pile up by 2050. That’s just one of the manifold threats that humans have created for sea turtles — including rising sea temperatures that bleach coral reefs, coastal overdevelopment and overfishing. But it’s perhaps the most visible, as shown by the gruesome scene in the Kalba lab. ADVERTISEMENTA massive amount of debris was found inside the dead turtles in Sharjah — 325 shards in one turtle, and 32 pieces of fishing net in another. They can cause deadly blockages, lacerations and gas to build up in the digestive tracts. The study also found that green sea turtles were most inclined to eat drifting plastic bags and ropes, which resemble their diet of cuttlefish and jellyfish. Loggerheads ate bottle caps and other small pieces of hard plastic mistaken for tasty snails and other marine invertebrates. The youngest sea turtles, not as discriminating, ate the most plastic.Conservationists in the UAE, including Yaghmour’s team and others at Sharjah’s Environmental and Protected Areas Authority, are seeking to protect the country’s turtles from the threats. Community officers respond to constant reports of turtles in distress, rescuing the sick reptiles for rehabilitation. “If we lose these turtles, the ecosystem will die,” said Abdulkarim Vettan, Al-Qurum Mangrove Center’s operational manager, pointing to one turtle whose flipper veterinarians amputated because it became caught up in a net. The environmentalists face a daunting task in the oil-rich federation that’s one of the world’s highest carbon-dioxide emitters and trash producers per capita. Over the past decades, plastic use and waste surged as the UAE transformed at warp-speed from a parched desert pearling towns into a super-modern business hub known worldwide for its culture of consumerism.Carbon-intensive desalination has driven much of the growth. The construction of Dubai’s colossal artificial islands a decade ago dredged up sediment that destroyed the natural reef and turtle nesting sites along the coast, according to environmental studies from the time. “Everything points toward major degradation and stress on the marine ecosystem of the Persian Gulf,” said Christian Henderson, a Middle East political ecologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “The development of car-dependent urban regions has been extremely fast, without any kind of environmental consideration at all.”The UAE pledged last fall to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the first country among the oil-rich sheikhdoms to make the long-term commitment

Plastic waste in Bangkok: pollution is a global problem (Getty)Plastic pollution now affects almost all species in the world’s oceans, and is set to quadruple by 2050, a report by wildlife group WWF has found.The report found that 88% of marine species, from plankton to whales are affected by contamination.Pollution hotspots such as the Mediterranean, the East China and Yellow Seas, and the Arctic sea ice are already exceeding dangerous thresholds of microplastics.The report commissioned by the WWF reviewed 2,590 studies and found that by the end of the century marine areas more than two and a half times the size of Greenland could exceed ecologically dangerous thresholds of microplastic concentration.The amount of marine microplastic could increase 50-fold by then, the wildlife charity warned.Watch: Plastic pollution: China starts tackling colossal problemRead more: Melting snow in Himalayas drives growth of green sea slime visible from spaceThis is based on projections that plastic production is expected to more than double by 2040 resulting in plastic debris in the ocean quadrupling by 2050.Heike Vesper, Director Marine Programme, WWF Germany said, “All evidence suggests that plastic contamination of the ocean is irreversible. Once distributed in the ocean, plastic waste is almost impossible to retrieve.“It steadily degrades and so the concentration of micro- and nanoplastics will continue to increase for decades. Targeting the causes of plastic pollution is far more effective than cleaning up afterwards.“If governments, industry and society act in unison now, they can still limit the plastic crisis.”The researchers warn that threatened species could be pushed towards extinction by plastic pollution.The damage may never be reversable. (PA)Read more: A 1988 warning about climate change was mostly rightDr. Melanie Bergmann, Marine Biologist, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research said: “Research acts like a flashlight with which we cast rays of light into the darkness of the oceans.Story continues“Only a fraction of the effects have been recorded and researched, but the documented effects caused by plastic are concerning and must be understood as a warning signal for a much larger scale, especially with the current and projected growth in plastic production.”Watch: Turtle travels from Maldives to Scotland after plastic pollution injuryRead more: Why economists worry that reversing climate change is hopelessThe durable nature of plastic also means that the uptake of microplastic, and nanoplastic, in the marine food chain will only continue to accumulate.The WWF called for countries to adopt a global treaty to limit plastic at the UN Environment Assembly 5.2 in February.Ghislaine Llewellyn, Deputy Oceans Lead, WWF, said: “Without a doubt, unchecked plastic pollution will become a contributing factor to the ongoing sixth mass extinction leading to widespread ecosystem collapse and transgression of safe planetary boundaries.“We know how to stop plastic pollution and we know the cost of inaction comes at the expense of our ocean ecosystems – there is no excuse for delaying a global treaty on plastic pollution. The way out of our plastic crisis is for countries to agree to a globally binding treaty that addresses all stages of plastic’s lifecycle and that puts us on a pathway to ending marine plastic pollution by 2030.”

Negotiators from around the world will start work this month on a treaty to reduce plastic pollution, in what diplomats say is the most ambitious round of climate diplomacy since the 2015 Paris agreement that focuses on global warming.The discussions, which have the backing of the Biden administration, could reshape a world increasingly awash in plastics that take centuries to break down and millennia to decompose. Diplomats could agree to caps on plastic production that would forestall the exponential increases that are expected in the coming decades. They could also impose rules to make plastic easier and less toxic to repurpose, amid growing concern that only 10 percent of the material ever made has been recycled.Talks are so preliminary that diplomats are still haggling over the issues they will and won’t negotiate. And few expect immediate breakthroughs. But officials say there is a window during President Biden’s current term in office to make a deal that would shake up the realm of plastics with the cooperation of the United States, the world’s biggest producer of plastic waste.“Countries are increasingly seeing this as a top-level threat,” said Norwegian Environment Minister Espen Barth Eide, who is leading the effort to start work on a plastics deal at the U.N. Environment Assembly, which starts Feb. 28 in Nairobi. “There has been strong recognition around the world. This is one of the most stable materials we produce. Using it for a single use, it’s strange.”Diplomats are still at the most preliminary phase of deciding what should even be subject to negotiation. At minimum, there is broad agreement that there should be a concerted effort to limit the flow of plastic debris into the world’s oceans. But a growing number of countries, including the United States, want to aim for more-ambitious targets.Any agreement is likely to have the Paris climate accord as its basic model, diplomats say. That deal — which includes nearly 200 countries — came together only because countries knew they would be in charge of setting their own voluntary goals, then living up to them. Detractors say such systems are toothless and end up falling far short of what is necessary. Advocates say they get all countries to work together and move in the same basic direction. They also say that many countries would never agree to a system with more-stringent requirements.As with the Paris agreement, one of the first issues a plastics treaty would address is the basic issue of counting: How much plastic is being manufactured? How much gets recycled? What kinds of chemicals are going into the plastic, and how are they being handled when the plastic is discarded? In much of the world, there aren’t reliable numbers.The effort comes from a growing concern that the world has failed to grapple with a rapidly expanding plastics problem and that older attempts to address plastic waste — for example, by focusing mostly on recycling — can’t stand on their own.“Our goal is to create a tool that we can use to protect our oceans and all of the life that they sustain from growing global harms of plastic pollution,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Nairobi in November. “It’s crucial that the agreement call on countries to develop and enforce strong national action plans to address this problem at its source.”Activists and environmental policymakers around the world have called for a broad effort to address plastics pollution, which they say is as much a global problem as the increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are fueling climate change. And, as with climate change, the least-developed countries have often faced the greatest burden of the problem. Rich countries such as the United States have been shipping much of their plastic waste elsewhere, first to China and more recently to African nations.“The African region becomes the region that has to bear the brunt, especially because there is no infrastructure” for recycling, said Griffins Ochieng, a plastics expert at the Nairobi-based Center for Environmental Justice and Development. “But with the increased importation of plastic waste and near-end-life products, it literally becomes dumping, because these are all going to end up in landfills or dumpsites.”Researchers who have tried to estimate the amount of plastic waste streaming into the world’s oceans have come up with astonishing figures. One high-profile 2015 study found that more than 8 million metric tons of plastic were probably entering global waters every year. That’s the equivalent of five grocery bags filled with plastic on every foot of coastline, all around the world, or a dump truck’s worth of plastic going into the ocean every minute.“That was shocking,” said Jenna Jambeck, a University of Georgia professor who was the lead researcher on the study. She said that for her, the problem of plastic pollution really hit home a few years ago when she sailed across the Atlantic to study it. She was staring into the ocean on a beautiful beach on one of the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa.“I walked up to the edge of the ocean where the waves were breaking on land, and it looks beautiful, and then I look down and every wave was full of plastic that I hadn’t seen, like confetti,” Jambeck said. “The ocean is literally spitting this material back at us. It made me almost sick.”The plastic waste problem plagues all levels of the ecosystem. There are the familiar images of turtles choking on straws, or birds whose stomachs are filled with plastic debris. But there is also increasing concern about the pervasiveness of microplastics — particles smaller than a sesame seed that have been broken down by ocean currents. In fish, microplastics have been found to disrupt reproductive systems and suppress appetite, upending the balance of sea life. Microplastics are piling up on the ocean’s floor and collecting in eddies on its surface.Plastics became widely available in the years after World War II, when wartime manufacturers shifted their production lines to the consumer market. Advertisements pitched at 1950s housewives praised the magic of serving meals on plastic plates and cups. (No cleanup!) And global plastic production is accelerating: More than half the plastic ever made has been produced since 2000, according to estimates from Jambeck’s lab.Much of it comes from the United States, which topped the world at 287 pounds of plastic waste per person per year, according to a 2020 estimate by a team of U.S. researchers. Britain and South Korea followed.The pandemic has worsened the problem, sparking a sharp rise in single-use plastic food containers, shipping materials and masks. In South Korea, plastic waste went up 19 percent in 2020 over the previous year, according to official figures.South Korean student Daniel Lee recently came home to a “plastic epidemic” upon returning to Seoul from his college overseas, he said. During a mandatory 10-day quarantine, Lee was banned from stepping out of his apartment and ended up relying heavily on food delivery and e-commerce for his daily necessities, which resulted in a “pile of plastic waste.”“It was inevitable during quarantine, but I found it hard to justify,” said Lee, 25.South Korea has expressed its general support for a plastics treaty and has vowed to cut its plastic waste, but it has struggled to track the problem, something a treaty would help encourage, said Jang Yong-chul, a professor of environmental engineering at Chungnam National University.“South Korea has a long way to go,” he said.The exponential growth in plastic production looks set to continue. As the oil and gas industry searches for new markets as fossil fuels are phased out in the coming decades, it has fixed its hopes on plastics, which use many of the same raw materials. The plastics industry says its materials do everything from keeping food fresher to lightening cars and trucks to make them more fuel-efficient.“Years ago, we were told to watch our carbon footprint. Now it’s, ‘What’s your plastic footprint?’” said Judith Enck, a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official during the Obama administration who now leads Beyond Plastics, an advocacy organization. “Well, it’s pretty big, because you’re not giving me any choices.”The sharp growth path has environmentalists around the world crying out for limits. One major problem is that recycling, which the plastic industry has long promoted as a way to win the acceptance of consumers, can handle only a fraction of the plastic that is produced. Only some types of plastics are easily recyclable. Many recycling programs create toxins as waste products. China, which had been importing much of the world’s plastic waste for reprocessing, ended the practice in 2018, in part because of environmental concerns.“Recycling plastics is actually recycling toxins back into the market,” said Bjorn Beeler, international coordinator at the International Pollutants Elimination Network, an advocacy and research group.Beeler and other plastic-skeptic allies favor what they call a “life cycle” approach to a plastics treaty — an effort to cap the overall production of plastics; limit the chemicals that can be used to make them, so they are safer to dispose of and recycle; and promote product designs that are easier to reuse.The plastics industry says it wants an agreement but one that it says would create more incentives for private businesses to come up with innovative ways to address plastic pollution.Restricting and regulating the production of plastic “is a very shortsighted approach to take,” said Joshua Baca, vice president of plastics at the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for chemicals manufacturers, “because not only are we in the midst of a supply chain crisis where everything from raw materials to finished products are very difficult to get your hands on, we’re going to then on top of that put some massive regulation scheme that will be very difficult to implement and will probably result in further supply chain disruption when we least can afford it.”Unlike efforts to combat climate change, fighting plastics pollution has found bipartisan support in the United States, since it is less politicized. A pair of senators, Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), have led congressional efforts, including the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in 2020.“Our oceans are in trouble,” Whitehouse said in a statement. “My hope is that American negotiators in Nairobi can lead the world toward a global agreement that will cut down the amount of plastic reaching the oceans.”Policymakers say they are hopeful about reaching an agreement, even if they need to discuss it for a year or two.“I don’t think we will have all answers to this by the end of February, and that’s okay. The point is to start a process,” said Barth Eide, the Norwegian minister. He said he believed the effort could make a difference.“Some of these treaties actually work,” he said.Kim reported from Seoul.