Global warming and climate change were once things that were considered centuries in the future. As we kept polluting the air with greenhouse gases and studied the matter further, we concluded the next generation could be in trouble. Soon climate catastrophes were only decades away. Now we are wondering if next year could possibly be worse than this year. Matt Simon now tells us that fossil fuels are inflicting disaster upon us in ways we have yet to even notice: the plasticization of Earth. He provides us needed enlightenment in his book A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies.
Simon offers some general perspectives.
“Whenever plastic packaging degrades in the environment, it breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. Whenever you wash your polyester or nylon clothes, which are made of soft plastic fibers—two-thirds of clothing is now made of plastic, in fact—millions of threads shed in a single wash and flow to a wastewater treatment facility. From here, the particles are either flushed out to sea or sequestered in ‘sludge,’ fertilizer that’s liberally applied to crops. Whenever you drive, chunks of synthetic rubber fly off your tires: each year in the US alone, cars spew 3 billion pounds of the stuff into the environment—that’s the wear you see in the treads. Whatever the source of microplastics, and there are many, the particles are accumulating on land, in rivers and lakes, in the sea, and in the atmosphere.”
“Everywhere scientists look, they find plastic particles, from the depths of the Mariana Trench to the tippy top of Mount Everest and every place in between. Microplastic is the pernicious glitter that has bastardized the whole of Earth, a forever-residue from the party that is consumerism. We have well and truly plasticized this planet, far more thoroughly than images of plastic clogged harbors would lead you to believe.”
“The world has never seen a pollutant quite like this. Heavy metals like lead and mercury are but elements, and nasties like DDT are compounds—science knows full well how these pollutants harm life. But the many kinds of plastic polymers contain at least 10,000 different chemicals, a quarter of which scientists consider to be of concern. Plus, as a microplastic particle tumbles through the environment, it accumulates pollutants already in the environment, as well as bacteria and viruses, including human pathogens. So microplastic isn’t a monolith but a many-headed petrochemical hydra, a plethora of poisons wrapped in one morsal for Earth’s organisms to consume. And being physical chunks or shards or fibers of plastic, these particles physically interact with the environment. Scientists are showing, for instance, that microplastics change the structure of soil, altering how it holds water and how microbial communities form, raising the alarm that the particles could impact crops. Microplastics, then, are a presence, more akin to an invasive species—a rat, a kudzu vine, a fire ant—than an ordinary poison, an unprecedented threat to life on this planet.”
The “plastic problem,” as understood by most, is the used water bottles trashing our landscapes and beaches. It is considered a problem because “plastic is forever” and those bottles won’t go away. But plastic is not forever. The easiest way to ingest small plastic particles is to take a swig of water from one of those bottles. Most of those particles will pass through your digestive system and exit the traditional way. But they are not unchanged. Experiments with animals indicate that the particles that pass through digestive systems are broken down into smaller particles. The term microplastics is used for fragments from a macro-object like a water bottle, but nanoplastics is the best descriptor for the final state of degradation. If particles are small enough, they can enter your blood stream and gain access to all your organs. And that is not all that can enter your system. Plastics are not just relatively harmless hydrocarbons, they are laced with many thousands of chemicals, plasticizers used to tune the physical properties of the material. Every time a plastic particle fragments further, chemicals, many known to be dangerous, are allowed to enter the environment—and our bodies.
We are in a position analogous to that of the smoking of tobacco. We knew it couldn’t be healthy, but it would take years to understand what it could do to us. Basically, smoking introduces small particulates and harmful chemicals into our lungs allowing them to be transferred to our blood stream and distributed to our brains and other organs. That is why there are so many ways that smoking can kill us. Plastic particles in the air possess a similar path into our bodies and provide a dose of toxic chemicals. It was astonishing to learn how laden the atmosphere is with plastic particulates. Simon tells us that the smaller particles being emitted from our car tires can be lofted into the atmosphere and stay suspended long enough to be transferred across the globe. The oceans are so polluted already that onshore winds are now a significant source of the plastic we inhale.
“…remember that a load of laundry releases hundreds of trillions of nanoplastics, so the oceans are increasingly burdened with the particles.”
“…having long received microfibers from wastewater, the seas are burping them back onto land…The thinking used to go that the ocean served as a microplastic sink: rivers and wastewater would carry the particles to the sea, and that’s where they would stay. But…the ostensibly fresh sea breeze you enjoy at the beach is laced with microplastics.”
Plastic particulates differ from smoking tobacco because they have the additional pathway into our bodies through the digestive system. What we lack in dealing with plastics as a health problem is the years of study. The potential for health issues has only recently become apparent. If people are not dying on the streets, it takes time to accumulate data on health effects. While experiments with people are not possible, experiments with animals are. Fish in the oceans ingest particles through respiration and food consumption. Those particles do end up spreading through their bodies. Experiments demonstrate that the performance of fish diminishes as the load of plastic particles increases. Much more study is required in order to understand the response of fish, let alone that of humans. Fortunately, some of the chemicals carried by plastics have already been studied. Unfortunately, they have been studied because they were determined to be hazardous.
Simon illustrates the potential for toxicity from chemicals that leach from plastics by focusing on the class referred to as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
“Your endocrine system is a network of glands that secrete hormones: the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in your brain, the thyroid in your neck, the pancreas in your gut, the ovaries and testes. This network churns out estrogen, testosterone, melatonin, and insulin, among others, which together regulate your metabolism, growth, stress, sleep, and immune system. Without a functioning endocrine system, you can’t have a functioning body.”
“Most EDCs have a similar structure to hormones, so they bind to receptors in the endocrine system, preventing our own hormones from doing so or eliciting a response when there shouldn’t be one…EDCs also interfere with enzymes the body uses to manufacture hormones, and with enzymes that should then be breaking down those hormones.”
“Health experts are particularly concerned about three classes of EDCs incorporated in the polymers we’re exposed to every day: bisphenols, phthalates, and BFAS.”
A reproductive toxicology professor, Jodi Flaws, provides input on bisphenols.
“Bisphenols are most infamously represented by bisphenol A, or BPA, which is a synthetic estrogen but is also good for making hard, clear plastics like water bottles and other food and beverage containers…Between 90 and 99 percent of people worldwide have BPA in their bodies…’We know from many studies now that it can affect both brain development and behavior in both animal models and people,’ says Flaws. ‘BPA exposure has been linked with both anxiety and depression, hyperactivity, and attention and behavioral problems.’ Same goes for polycystic ovarian syndrome and sexual dysfunction in men. ‘It’s been linked in human studies with breast cancers and prostate cancers, as well as some indication it might be linked with ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer’.”
And then there are the phthalates.
“Joining PBA and its ilk in their assault on the endocrine system are the phthalates, plasticizers that give the material more flexibility. Plastics can be up to 60 percent phthalates by weight. Accordingly, indoor air is teeming with the chemicals, which researchers have found more in infants than adults. Like bisphenols, phthalates disrupt the reproductive system and have been associated with reduced testosterone and estrogen levels—toxicologists have identified them as possible culprits in declining fertility among men and women. One study of 139 women found that the higher the phthalate levels in their blood, the more likely they were to develop postpartum depression. Studies have also linked phthalates to diabetes and heart problems.”
Back to Jodi Flaws on BFAS.
“’These are actually pretty scary compounds to me because they’re what we call “forever chemicals.’ Says Flaws. ‘They really do not break down very well in the environment.’ We’re talking life spans of thousands of years. And PFAS are no less harmful than phthalates and bisphenols: toxicologists have shown them to disrupt the immune system and affect the liver and thyroid. They’re associated with reduced fertility and low birth weight and have also been linked to breast, ovarian, and testicular cancers, plus non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.”
Endocrine disruption is particularly dangerous if it can occur while a fetus is developing. The placenta is a partner in the growth process, producing and distributing hormones at critical stages in the development. They must show up at the right time and at the right levels or things can go terribly wrong. Allowing plastic particles and their EDCs into that system is scary.
“And now toxicologists are gathering evidence that mothers are passing microplastics and nanoplastics—complete with EDCs and other toxic substances—to their fetuses. In 2021, scientists announced that they’d found microplastics in human placentas for the first time, both on the fetal side and maternal side. Later that year another team of researchers found the same, and they also tested meconium—a newborn’s first feces—and discovered microplastic there too. Children are consuming microplastics, then, before they’re even born.”
We know that dosing the Earth with plastic particulates
and their associated chemicals can’t be healthy for any animals, let alone
humans. But we don’t know yet how unhealthy
the situation is. What we do know is
that the concentration of plastic particulates will continue to grow—and
quickly. We also know that convincing
people to limit plastic usage would likely be a tougher sell than getting them
to limit the burning of fossil fuels has been.
What do we do? Probably the best
we can accomplish is to communicate the issue, as Simon is doing, but also make
medical research in this area a national priority and fund it appropriately.
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