People, wildlife, planet pay cost of convenience for single-use plastics

WASHINGTON (AN) – Birds eat it until they rattle. Fish get so entangled in it that they sink and die. It’s found at Earth’s extremes, and as you read this it’s coursing through your bloodstream, probably doing damage that scientists are only now coming to be understand.

"Plastics … there’s a great future in plastics," Mr. McGuire famously tells a bewildered Benjamin Braddock in the 1967 film The Graduate. "Think about it. Will you think about it?"

Nearly 60 years later, scientists and environmentalists are thinking about it – and rethinking it. While plastics have undeniably advanced fields like medicine, transportation, and consumer safety, the consensus today is far more sobering: The future of plastics, as we know it, is anything but great.

Plastic is a relatively modern invention, one that has, in many ways, changed our lives for the better. It is also polluting our planet. Plastic litters the slopes of Mount Everest and is found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot in the ocean. It kills wildlife, contributes to global warming, and poisons our bodies.

To coincide with Thursday's observation of World Environment Day, the United Nations Environment Program is sponsoring a discussion in Brussels of the future of plastics and "solutions for a plastic-free future."

Is plastic our legacy?

The legacy of our generation may well be a plastic layer in Earth’s geological record, marking the moment when we began to lose control over our inventions.

Since the 1950s, we’ve produced 9.2 billion tons of the stuff, and research shows that nearly three-quarters of it ends up as waste. Single-use plastic products are the obvious sign of the problem and we see it almost everywhere: Coke, Pepsi, and water bottles fouling beaches, grocery bags flapping in tree branches, cigarette filters and styrofoam food containers littering our streets and byways, broken toys and scrap PVC piping dumped into landfills.

UNEP says humans produced some 400 million tons of plastic waste last year alone.

U.N. seeks treaty on 'full life cycle of plastics'

In March 2022, the U.N. Environment Assembly passed a resolution to come up with a binding agreement on plastic pollution, including in the marine environment. This resolution mandated UNEP to convene an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to develop a treaty addressing the "full life cycle of plastics," from production and design to disposal.

INC conducted five sessions, each time coming up short because of major divisions among the member nations, especially on whether the treaty would include binding targets to reduce plastic production.

The "High Ambition Coalition" led by Rwanda and Norway, which also includes the European Union, United Kingdom and dozens of other nations, advocates for the goals; petrostates, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia, oppose them in favor of focusing on recycling and waste management.

INC sessions generated other controversy as well, for example by including representatives of the plastic and petrochemical industries, who stall and obstruct progress, while limiting access for Indigenous and other frontline groups disproportionately impacted by plastic pollution.

INC holds its next scheduled session in Geneva's Palais des Nations, the U.N.'s European headquarters, from August 5-14. That gathering will be the second part of the fifth session on plastic pollution held last year in Busan, South Korea.

'A problem we can solve'

The way forward remains uncertain at best. Still, the discussions in Brussels and Geneva will give the international community an opportunity to address the future of plastics. It remains unclear what role the United States might play, given President Donald Trump’s heterodox positions on public health, the environment, and climate change.

"Plastic pollution is one of the gravest environmental threats facing the Earth but it’s a problem we can solve," says Elisa Tonda, an environmental engineer who heads a UNEP branch on resources and markets. "Doing so could not only improve the well-being of people and the planet, but also unlock a host of economic opportunities."

A new report, Plastics & Climate, reveals a surprising dimension of how plastics may be contributing to climate change. While it’s well established that the production and full lifecycle of plastics are major sources of greenhouse gas emissions – now accounting for at least 4% of global emissions and projected to reach 15% by mid-century – the study highlights lesser-known and emerging threats.

Plastic pollution also disrupts organisms and ecosystems critical to the global carbon cycle. By interfering with forests, soils, and oceans, which act as Earth’s natural carbon sinks, plastic alters how carbon is absorbed and stored across the biosphere.

Perhaps more surprising is research suggesting that plastic particles may be affecting Earth’s radiation budget, the balance of energy reflected, absorbed, and emitted by the planet. Early findings indicate that plastic particles on Earth’s surface may increase solar reflectivity, potentially creating localized cooling. Suspended in the atmosphere, nanoplastics may alter energy exchange between the air and surface in similarly cooling ways.

However, as the study notes, "because this area of research is so new and few tests have been done, much remains unknown."

How plastic impacts our health

Scientists, meanwhile, are only beginning to more fully understand the impact of plastic exposure on the human body. So far, there’s no evidence suggesting it’s remotely healthy to have plastic in your brain, blood, or gut.

Nanoplastics, measuring less than 1 micrometer, are the most likely to enter the human body through air, water, food, and even clothing. Current research links ingested plastic to inflammation, preterm births, metabolic disorders like diabetes and obesity, and increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The journal Lancet reports that in 2018 alone, exposure to chemicals used in plastic production – specifically phthalates like DEHP – were implicated in more than 356,000 cardiovascular deaths worldwide.

The research reveals stark geographic disparities, with South Asia and the Middle East suffering the highest percentages of cardiovascular mortality attributable to this exposure.

“Plastics pose a significant risk to increased cardiovascular mortality, disproportionately impacting regions which have developing plastic production sectors,” the authors conclude.

These findings underscore the urgent need for both global and local regulatory interventions to curb mortality linked to DEHP and other plastic-related toxins.

Scientific research "has documented a wide range of risks and potential adverse impacts on human health at every stage of the plastics lifecycle. The impacts are often greatest for people and communities in the most vulnerable situations, including children," the World Health Organization says in documents prepared for the upcoming INC session.

Birds that rattle and crunch

On Lord Howe Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site off Australia's east coast, researchers from Adrift Lab have documented alarming levels of plastic ingestion among seabirds, particularly the flesh-footed shearwater, commonly known as the muttonbird. In a recent study, they found a chick with 778 pieces of plastic in its stomach, accounting for nearly 20% of its body weight, an unfortunate new record.

Ingested plastics include trash like bottle caps, cutlery, and soy sauce containers, which are mistaken for food by adult birds and fed to their chicks, doing damage that can lead to starvation. Some birds have consumed so much plastic that make audible crunching sounds, earning them nicknames like “crunchy birds” and “brick birds.”

While UNEP labors to produce a workable plastics treaty, some governments and consumers have moved ahead.

In April, the U.S. Virgin Islands filed a lawsuit against Coca-Cola and PepsiCo for their alleged roles in promoting single-use plastics and creating the territory’s “dire” plastic-pollution problem. Canada classified plastic-manufactured items as “toxic” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, but a federal court struck down the rule as too broad.

Top brands of polluting plastic

The environmental coalition Break Free From Plastic consistently identified Coca-Cola Co. as the world’s worst plastic polluter because of its reliance on single-use plastic bottles, prompting individual consumers and grassroots groups to mount social-media campaigns calling for boycotts.

Science.org reports that the top identifiable brands found on plastic pollution were: Coca-Cola Co. (11%), PepsiCo (5%), Nestle (3%), Danone (3%) and Altria (2%).

Oceana, a Washington-based environmental group dedicated to ocean conservation, says Coca-Cola will use 9.1 billion pounds of plastic a year by the end of the decade, a 40% increase over the company’s reported plastic use in 2018.