Plastics a growing threat around world
In Ottawa, nations gather to consider solutions
On the eve of an international meeting to debate a global treaty on plastic pollution, Earth Day 2024 on Monday highlighted the planet’s growing problem with plastics in events ranging from beach cleanups and seminars to an environmental demonstration in Seoul, South Korea.
Since the first Earth Day in 1970, plastic has become more ubiquitous in our environment. It’s now considered “a crisis of global proportion,” according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Committee to Develop an International Legally Binding Instrument on Plastic Pollution, including in the Marine Environment.
“This is right there with climate change as a primordial threat to the planet,” pediatrician Leonardo Trasande, a researcher and professor at New York University, told journalists at the Society of Environmental Journalists meeting in Philadelphia earlier in April.
Billions of bits of plastic infiltrate waterways and oceans, are consumed in beverages and food and are found in the internal organs of people and wildlife. A 2023 paper published by the National Library of Medicine, and others, shows microplastics can wreak havoc on hormones and contribute to a range of health problems.
On Tuesday in Ottawa, Canada, the U.N. committee began days of talks aimed at reaching a draft agreement on plastics in the environment. It’s the fourth meeting since 2022, when the U.N. agreed to develop a treaty to curb the flow of plastics into the environment.
Here’s a breakdown of some key terms and major issues expected to be discussed:
Plastic has been found in every corner of the world and has turned up in drinking water, beer, salt and honey, according to Oceana, an ocean conservation group. While some may think of plastic pollution as plastic shopping bags or soda bottles, it’s the tiniest particles – microplastics and nanoplastics – raising big concerns.
Microplastics, for example, are tiny particles of polymers less than 5 millimeters long, no bigger than a grain of rice. They come from plastic bottles, synthetic clothing fibers, car tires and other products as plastics break down slowly.
Anika Dzierlenga, a program lead at the National Institutes of Health, said: “We know very little about what these microplastics or even smaller pieces of plastics, known as nanoplastics, can do to human health in the short or long-term, or even what they can do to the health of the sea turtles and other animals that live in the ocean.”
Nanoplastics are even smaller, only one-billionth of a meter, according to the National Nanotechnology Initiative. By comparison, a strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter and a human hair is approximately 80,000-100,000 nanometers wide, the Initiative states.
The annual production of plastic, including polymer resins and fibers, increased from 2 million tons in 1950 to 459.75 million tons in 2019, according to Our World in Data, citing a 2023 paper about plastic production published in the journal Science Advances. By 2022, estimates suggest plastic production exceeded more than 400 million tons.
Estimates suggest that less than 10% of plastic waste in the U.S. is recycled, while a majority heads to landfills.
Plastic and the particles it produces can be found from the Arctic tundra to the deepest oceans, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.N. It includes everything from large items such as bottles, jugs and plastic bags floating in the ocean and washing up on beaches to the particles that a recent study found may be linked to an increased risk of heart attack, stroke and death.
One study found bottled water can contain 10 to 100 times more plastic bits than previously thought, while other studies have found microplastics in clouds, rain and in the placentas of pregnant people.
For some, the bigger concerns beyond the tide of plastic bits are the chemicals and contaminants they carry that have been linked to endocrine disruption and other abnormalities in the human body and the harmful fossil fuel emissions from the production of plastic. Studies show that microplastics accumulate chemicals and pathogens on their surfaces.
The U.N. committee is scheduled to discuss polymers, waste management, trade, pollution, financing and technology as it tries to reach an agreement among the world’s governments, in an effort similar to the talks in Paris that produced the global treaty on climate change in 2015.
Reuters has reported that many plastic and petrochemical-producing countries, including China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, do not support language in favor of production limits.
Last week, in advance of the treaty talks, the American Chemistry Council, a trade industry for chemical manufacturers in the U.S., released a study by Oxford Economics which concluded a production cap on virgin plastics would carry “major economic costs.”
The State Department says the U.S. supports the development of “an ambitious global agreement on plastic pollution that has universal obligations throughout the lifetime of plastics.”
A major focus of the proposed international treaty is plastic in the marine environment.
Millions of tons of microplastics – ranging in size from the width of a pencil to smaller than a sesame seed – find their way into oceans, according to the National Institutes. The particles move into people through the food chain and also attract pollutants that are carried into new environments.
An estimated 33 billion pounds of plastic wash into the ocean every year – about two garbage trucks worth of plastic every minute, according to Oceana.
April Burt, a conservation scientist with the University of Oxford, said it’s not too late to stem the flow. “The global plastics treaty gives us the opportunity to turn the tide on plastic pollution, from policy on the manufacture of plastics to retailer responsibilities and dealing with legacy plastics.”