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I've Got Plastic on My Mind (And in My Body Too) | Dominika Front
Note: this article is filled with links. You don’t have to read them to follow the text. Rather, they are there should anyone be more curious and/or wish to fact-check the author.
Plastic’s great. It’s cheap, it’s comfortable; it allows you to store food and keep stuff; it makes up tyres, plumbing, household appliances, wrappers, electronics, paint, clothes, and much more. No wonder that since its invention, we’ve been obsessed with it.
But it does come with severe drawbacks. Some plastics are harmful, and may cause cancer or tamper with bodily hormones. On top of that, we are producing more plastic than we need and more than our recycling systems can handle. Typical decomposition time is 500-1000 years. During that time, it pulverises and gets scattered all around the world. And that’s a problem – it would be difficult to swallow a plastic bottle, but when it comes in pieces smaller than 5 millimetres? Piece of plastic cake. Actually, the amount of plastic we eat is equivalent to a credit card. Every week.
Such pieces, 5 mm or smaller, are called microplastics (MPs). Nanoplastics, a subtype of microplastics, are smaller than 1,000 nanometres (nm) and can’t be seen by the human eye. There are two types of microplastics. Primary microplastics are manufactured so small on purpose, while secondary microplastics are the product of the degradation of larger plastics during a process called fragmentation.
Microplastics come from various sources. One way they may enter the environment is through washing our clothes. During each washing cycle, a garment sheds fibres that are not filtered by the washing machine, which then enter the water cycle. Actually, up to 35% of ocean microplastic pollution comes from textiles, such as polyester, acrylic, or nylon.
Other sources of MPs include tyre erosion; shipping and transport, when packages are thrown away; and the construction industry, which uses lots of plastic materials, such as Styrofoam. A significant portion of microplastics comes from the fishing industry, especially from rope abrasion and fishing gear that is dumped in the water.
One of the biggest offenders in this regard is the cosmetics industry, which utilises primary microplastics especially in the form of exfoliating cosmetics, including microbeads (tiny little balls that you can find in body peeling). You can learn more about microbeads on the “Beat the Microbead” website. They also published a list of over 500 microplastic ingredients used in cosmetics. Some countries took action to deal with this problem. According to the OECD, the Netherlands were the first country to ban microbeads in cosmetics in 2014. Other countries have taken their lead, e.g. Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Canada, Italy, South Korea, the UK, and the US. Furthermore, the EU has recently banned microplastics in personal care products, such as toothpaste or face wash. They claim this regulation will “prevent the release to the environment of about half a million tonnes of microplastics”.
Yet, single-use plastic products are probably the most notorious source of microplastics in the environment. After being used just once, they pollute the environment the very moment they get discarded. They later add to the plastic pollution again after breaking down into smaller pieces. However, before polluting the environment, single use plastics make a mess in our bodies, too. Consider a simple coffee-to-go ordered in a seemingly paper cup. If it consisted of paper only, the moisture from your drink would be absorbed by cellulose. To prevent leakage in paper cups, a light layer of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is used to coat the inside of the cup, which will later be discharged into your drink.
Recently, some studies have been published on the release of microplastics from single-use plastic products. A 2023 paper highlights that the quantities of released MPs vary from 1,000 to 5,000 particles per litre. The same study also draws attention to the fact that heat accelerates releasing MPs. When it comes to microplastics, the consequences might not be as detrimental as with nanoplastics. The former are almost fully expelled from the body (“with below 0.3% absorption rates”), while the latter can be absorbed into bodily tissues, posing a much higher risk than larger particles.
This problem, of course, is common not only to disposable cups, but other single-use plastic products as well, such as food containers (especially those heated up in microwaves), water bottles (93% out of 259 bottles tested, purchased in 19 different locations in 9 countries), and – I bet you did not see that one coming – baby bottles. Scientists at Trinity College followed international sterilisation guidelines to prepare the formula in 10 different feeding bottles – sterilising with 95°C water, then shaking the formula powder with 70°C water in the bottle. The team found millions of microplastics and trillions of nanoplastics per litre of liquid. Their estimates also put everyday microplastic intake by babies at 1.6-2M during their first year of life.
According to the United Nations, 430M tonnes of plastic is produced every year, two-thirds of which is thrown away and is degrading in our environment. 358 trillion microplastic particles are estimated to be floating in oceans, even in the deepest trenches, and they have an enormous influence on marine life.
MPs persist throughout the food chain. It means that aquatic creatures may mistake them for food or eat another animal that already absorbed microplastic particles. It can have dire consequences. Larger particles can cause physical harm, e.g. tissue damage. Moreover, plastics contain a multitude of toxins, which can easily be absorbed by all organisms since microplastics cross the blood-brain barrier, and they can enter testicles and follicles. The toxins can function as endocrine disruptors, posing a threat to the entire endocrine system, which is closely connected to the reproductive system. The latter’s contact with toxins can result in genetic mutations. Not only do the microplastics imperil individual species, but also the biodiversity and stability of ecosystems.
Wait a second, if this is how microplastics influence aquatic life, shouldn’t we be panicking right now? Yes and no. The problem is that there’s a lot of uncertainty here. A paper published in 2021 concludes that “the accurate assessment of human exposure to nanoplastics remains a scientific challenge due to the lack of validated methods, certified reference materials, and standardization across the analytical procedures used”. Similarly, Albert Rizzo, Chief Medical Officer for the American Lung Association, explains that science does not provide clear answers on the matter and that exposure time is crucial. As he tells the National Geographic, the situation can be compared to the attempts to change the policy on smoking:
“By the time we got enough evidence to lead to policy change, the cat was out of the bag,” he says. “I can see plastics being the same thing. Will we find out in 40 years that microplastics in the lungs led to premature aging of the lung or to emphysema? We don’t know that. In the meantime, can we make plastics safer?” And can we do anything to avoid its potential dreadful effects on our bodies?
For one, we must recycle plastics so that they don’t end up in landfills or oceans. Proper filters on water treatment plants and in washing machines will stop fibres from entering the environment. Instead of single-use plastics, we can try using metallic, ceramic, or glass products. With baby bottles, the scientists who conducted the aforementioned study suggest the bottle be rinsed three times after sterilisation with water boiled and cooled in a nonplastic container. The formula should also be prepared in a non-plastic container and then poured into a clean bottle.
Generally, education and funding are key. The greater the awareness, the fewer people pollute the environment, and the fewer microplastic particles are there as a result. Without funding, research and educational actions won’t take off. However, the question arises to what extent our initiatives against microplastics will be successful. We could potentially slow down the dispersion process, but I doubt that we can eradicate the problem. Microplastic has been found on Mt. Everest and in the deepest trenches of the oceans; in humans’ brains, placenta, milk, lungs, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised if we took some MP particles to the moon.
