By Patti Wood
Even those who are not particularly interested in environmental health probably took notice of the two alarming studies that came out recently, showing that thousands of tiny plastic particles are showing up in the food we eat and the water we drink.
But it came as no surprise to those scientists who have been tracking the fate of plastic waste and the micro- and nanoplastic pieces that are found across the planet for decades.
These tiny pieces are either directly released into the environment or come from plastic disintegration. Unless plastic has been incinerated and has now joined the pollutants that compromise our air, it is still here on Earth, every single piece of it.
To understand the scale of the pollution, plastic pieces of all sizes are found on Mount Everest, the highest peak on the planet and in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of our oceans. They are also found in your McDonald’s hamburger, your breaded shrimp and your morning coffee from Starbucks.
Day after day, plastics in our food packaging – cups and their tops, straws, plastic cutlery, plastic bags and storage containers, fast fashion, electronics, children’s toys, carpets, floor finishes, tires, pens, pencils, eyeglasses and even prosthetic teeth are loading up the planet with an environmental legacy that we are leaving future generations.
One of the studies from Columbia and Rutgers universities and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a one-liter plastic bottle of water contained about 240,000 invisible nanoplastic particles.
You can be absolutely certain that there are nanoplastics in that plastic water bottle you carry around with you. Some of the pieces actually come from the plastic filters that remove some of the chemicals in the water before it goes into the bottle, some of it comes from the plastic bottle itself, and some of it probably comes from the tiny fragments that break off every time you unscrew and replace the plastic top on the bottle.
A decade ago, I introduced an environmental education program into the middle school in Port Washington called, “I’ll Have the Plastic Fish Special, Please.”
The kids, of course, were intrigued by the title, and when I explained the story of plastic from cradle to grave, they began to understand what it meant.
At that time, we knew that fish swimming in our ocean’s gyres were found to have plastic in their flesh (hence the title of the program), but so much more is known today about plastic pollution and the consensus is that WE are all swimming in plastic.
The other study, conducted by an independent research facility in Canada in cooperation with the Ocean Conservancy, looked for micro-and nanoplastics in a food source that all of us eat regularly – protein.
They looked at 16 protein sources, including raw fish, fish sticks, processed meat and pork loins, tofu and chicken in all its forms. In general, all the protein sources had some nanoplastics in them, with the highest amounts found in the most processed versions.
Tofu, while not a “muscle meat” protein, was found to have nanoparticles, probably because agricultural soils contain plastics and they are taken up by plants.
Single-use plastic has tipped us over the edge and plastic recycling is a complete myth – a fairy tale. The fact is, it is not economically viable to recycle plastic, and the less than 6% of plastic that actually does get recycled will soon be once again a part of the waste stream.
Plastic manufacturers, the biggest fossil fuel companies, want to sell as much oil as possible to manufacture virgin plastic, so they have a major conflict of interest – they don’t want recycling to work. But that doesn’t stop them from talking about it.
Since the 1970s, the industry has been “selling” recycling, because according to a top industry insider, “selling recycling sells plastic.” They expect plastic production to triple by 2050.
The ubiquitous and upbeat marketing messages of the plastics industry is being challenged by independent scientists and increasingly by the public.
This pressure has made the industry get creative…how about chemical recycling, pyrolysis or turning plastic into fuel?
Every one of these attempts to deal with plastic waste will create more toxins on the planet and add to the plastic crisis. The only thing to do is turn off the tap!
If it sounds like there is no winning strategy with plastic, then you’re beginning to get the point.
Every single time we bring plastic into our lives, we are levying a burden on our children and their children, leaving them with an environmental price tag that will cost not only their money, but their health.
We don’t yet know for certain what the impact of swallowing a credit card’s worth of plastic every week is doing to humans, but Dr. Kenneth Spaeth, division chief of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Northwell Health and Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine, had this to say after the studies were released: “Each nanoplastic particle is different due to the various chemicals used to make that particular plastic item. We do know that a large portion of the components of these particles are things known to be toxic to human health and to the environment, but linking [health effects] directly to the nanoplastics has not yet been done.
“This is likely to become a critical issue when we have the data to point to it … I think most people understand this is likely to turn out to be a hazard.”