Plastics have been linked to a wide range of negative health impacts, including cancer, respiratory illnesses, and birth defects.
The first investigation of the health risks associated with plastics across their full life cycle, from extraction for manufacturing to disposal in landfills and oceans, has been completed.
Plastics Harms Human Health
The analysis, led by Boston College’s Global Observatory on Planetary Health, concluded that current patterns of plastic production, use, and disposal are not sustainable and are responsible for major harm to human health.
The report discovered that workers in the plastic manufacturing industry as well as coal miners, oil field workers, and gas field workers who extract fossil carbon feedstocks for plastic synthesis were particularly at risk of injury.
According to the paper, these employees suffer greater mortality from traumatic injury silicosis, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer.
Workers who produce plastic are more likely to develop leukemia, lymphoma, brain cancer, breast cancer, mesothelioma, impaired fertility, and other cancers. Heart disease, lung cancer, toxic metal poisoning, and neuropathy are more common among plastic recyclers.
In the meantime, premature delivery, low birth weight, asthma, pediatric leukemia, cardiovascular illness, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lung cancer are all more common in areas where plastic production and garbage disposal occur.
The study made reference to data showing that young children and fetuses were especially in danger.
A legally binding pact was required, according to Frank Seebacher, a professor of biology at the University of Sydney’s school of life and environmental sciences.
He claimed that because of the necessity for fossil fuels, plastics are just as bad as climate change in terms of their worldwide effects.
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Biden Administration’s Environmental Plan
Tossing the fork in your curbside compost bin is not permitted if you order takeout in Los Angeles and it comes with a compostable fork made of PLA, a popular bio-based plastic.
The city claims that despite being used in commercial composting facilities, items that are labeled biodegradable or compostable don’t actually decompose that quickly.
The fork cannot be placed in a recycling container either since it can contaminate other recyclables. And it might survive just as long if it winds up in the ocean or a landfill as if it were composed of conventional plastic.
It serves as one illustration of the difficulties facing the incoming Biden administration’s initiative to assist the United States in replacing 90% of its plastic consumption with products derived from bio-based feedstocks.
According to Steve Hynd, policy and communications manager for City to Sea, a UK NGO that fights plastic waste, bioplastic isn’t a magic cure. He asserts that using less plastic, in the beginning, is the first and most visible approach. From 2000 to 2019, the world’s plastic manufacturing more than doubled.
Since then, more than 40 new petrochemical factories for the production of plastic have either begun construction or the permission process in the United States alone.
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