As global consumption grows, the world is facing a “plastic crisis” that only seems to be worsening, according to a report published in The Lancet medical journal on Monday, Aug. 4.
“Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognised danger to human and planetary health,” the study’s authors said, adding that plastics’ ill effects impact everyone of every age, even before they’re born.
How big of an issue is plastic production and consumption?
Every year, more than 475 megatons of plastic are produced globally. The report’s authors say less than 10% of it is recycled. They say currently, about 8,000 megatons are polluting the planet.
For perspective, one megaton is 1,000,000,000 kilograms, or 2,204,620,000 pounds.
According to the report, plastics present a danger to human health that’s costing the world at least $1.5 trillion every year, causing “disease and death from infancy to old age.”
“These effects include impaired reproductive potential (eg, polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis), perinatal effects (eg, miscarriage, reduced birthweight, and malformations of the genital organs), diminished cognitive function (eg, intelligence quotient loss), insulin resistance, hypertension and obesity in children, and type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, obesity, and cancer in adults,” the report found.
In addition, plastics are “contributing to climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss” and their detrimental effects “fall disproportionately upon low-income and at-risk populations.”
According to the United Nations, recent forecasts “indicate that plastic leakage into the environment will grow 50 per cent by 2040.”
The newly-published report says plastic causes harm at every stage of its lifecycle, from the use of fossil fuels to create it to the adverse affects it has on humans when they use it and even its disposal after use.
The report also specifically raised concerns over microplastics, which have been found throughout the human body, including in breast milk and brain tissue. A recent study also linked microplastics to infertility.
Industries release between 10 to 40 million metric tons of microplastic particles into the environment each year, according to the Stanford Report.
“Plastic never goes away — it just breaks down into finer and finer particles,” said Dr. Desiree LaBeaud, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Stanford Medicine.
What can be done to mitigate the effects?
If the world stays on its current course, global plastic consumption is set to triple by 2060, but the report’s authors say that doesn’t have to happen. However, current steps being taken are not enough to prevent that outcome.
“It is now clear that the world cannot recycle its way out of the plastic pollution crisis,” they said. “Control of the plastics crisis will require continuing research coupled with the science-driven interventions — laws, policies, monitoring, enforcement, incentives, and innovations.”
The report was strategically released just a day before a final round of talks in Geneva, Switzerland is set to begin between 175 countries on Tuesday, Aug, 5. Leaders from across the globe are working to negotiate the world’s first global plastics treaty.
