Microplastics have become a major cause for concern. Researchers are finding them in the air, on top of mountains, and at the bottom of the ocean. Researchers are also finding them in virtually every type of organism, including humans.

And no one is sure what the impacts are going to be.

Roughly 5000 tons of plastic enters the environment each year. And an astounding 91% of it is not recycled, with most of it being dumped into landfills and the ocean. This happens because of improper recycling and waste management systems in heavily populated countries, many of which are still developing.

A study by the World Economic Forum found 90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from only 10 river systems. “Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.” The basins for these rivers are home to hundreds of millions of people, many of which do not have access to modern waste removal processes.

Furthermore, the amount of plastic in the environment is likely to increase. This is due in part to higher rates of consumption. Its also because last year China announced it would stop importing garbage, including discarded plastic, from other countries. For many years, China has made money from accepting and recycling nearly half of the world’s plastic refuse. Now they have banned the practice, citing environmental issues of their own.

In fact, a recent study by the University of Georgia found “An estimated 111 million metric tons of plastic waste will be displaced with the new Chinese policy by 2030.”

As this plastic sits in landfills and the ocean, it gets broken down. The waves, wind, sun, etc., weather the plastic into particles as small as only a few micrometers, which are invisible to the human eye. Because of this small size, they can travel easily, eventually winding up in some surprising and alarming places.

Where Are Microplastics Being Found?

Researchers form the University of Toronto found microplastics in our tap water. They tested samples from several different sources and found traces of microplastics in all of them. They claim “we should be concerned that the mismanagement of our waste has come back to haunt us.”

The World Health Organization also found that 90% of popular bottled water brands contain measurable amounts of microplastics. The researchers looked at water bottles from 11 different brands from 9 different countries. They found an average 325 microplastics per liter, which is twice what they found in tap water.

Furthermore, microplastics can be airborne. In a paper published in Nature, the researchers detailed their work analyzing the soil in a remote part of the Pyrenees Mountains. Over the course of 5 months, they found hundreds of microplastics per square meter. Of course, the only way these could have arrived in such a remote area is through atmospheric transport and deposition. They believe that these microplastics could have come from up to 95 km away.

Other researchers strategically set out collection sites in and around Hamburg, Germany. They found similar results, in that all sites showed a steady rain of microplastic from above. Over a 12 week period, they found “A median abundance between 136.5 and 512.0 microplastic particles per m2/day.”

It is also no surprise that microplastics abound in seafood consumed by humans. While the data is scant, researchers found microplastics in 25% of commercial fish in California. Likewise, they found that commercially farmed fish contain a significantly higher amount of microplastics when compared to non-commercial. These researchers also warned this number could be much higher in fish from other areas, depending on where the fish are imported from, as some fish are caught off the coast of countries with far higher amounts of microplastic.

Not surprisingly, larger marine life that feed on this seafood have microplastics in them as well. British researchers tested 50 marine animals including dolphins, seals, porpoises, and whales, and they found an average of 5.5 particles in the gut of each. They also found that microplastics affect “a wide variety of marine biota from zooplankton, such as copepods, other invertebrates (including shellfish), both juvenile and adult fish, seabirds and marine megafauna.”

Microplastics are also being found in arctic sea ice and in the deepest parts of the ocean, again showing just how prevalent they are, as virtually no part of the planet is immune.

With this in mind, it is worth wondering how much microplastic is consumed by humans. A study from the Journal of Environmental Science & Technology estimated that humans consume well over 100,000 microplastics per year. They calculated this by analyzing the average amounts of microplastics in the air, water, and food that humans consume.

In another study researchers performed a survey of 52 peer reviewed studies and determined that humans consume roughly half a pound of microplastics per year, which is the equivalent of about a credit card’s worth of plastic per week.

And yet another study examined human feces for its microplastic content. Stool samples were taken from 8 participants from different areas and with different lifestyles, and traces of microplastics were found in each. They authors of the study believe that the majority of the world’s population have microplastic in their feces, although they admit larger scale studies are needed.

How Do Microplastics Affect Humans?

On one hand, a meta analysis performed by the Science Advice for Policy by European Academies found microplastics do not have a high enough concentration in the environment to be harmful to humans. By doing a wide scale survey of the academic literature, they concluded there is no immediate danger. They said humans should continue to eat shellfish, drink bottled water, etc.

On the other hand, this study has been highly criticized for a lack of rigor and precision. The authors themselves have claimed their conclusions were based on assumptions and that their measurements methods had serious limitations.

Moreover, Vethaak and Leslie, researchers from Amsterdam, claim that there is ample reason to believe microplastics are already having negative effects on humans. First, they say numerous studies performed on animals clearly demonstrate that microplastics can pass into vital systems such as the blood stream, the lungs, and the lymphatic system. They even claim there is evidence microplastics can permeate the human placenta.

Second, they believe the negative effects on humans may not be directly detectable. That is, microplastics may cause chronic inflammation, which is a precursor to a myriad of other diseases. Therefore, microplastics may cause a rise in other types of disorders.

Third, they believe that microplastics can be toxic in ways not typically considered. They identified three types of toxicities: particle toxicity, chemical toxicity, and a vector for pathogens and parasites. Particle toxicity is caused by the particle itself, whereas chemical toxicity is due to the many additives used to give the plastic desirable properties. Lastly, they believe that microplastics can contain a wide variety of harmful organisms. For example, they claim “plastic debris off the Belgian coast has been found to contain human pathogenic bacteria (e.g., Escherichia coli, Bacillus cereus, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia).”

So What Are The Solutions?

The obvious solutions are to either use less plastic and/or improve recycling capabilities. But, realistically (perhaps pessimistically) this is unlikely to happen. Therefore, other efforts are underway.

For example, The Ocean Cleanup is using a system of buoys and advanced algorithms to remove large plastic waste from the oceans before it can be broken down. Despite some recent setbacks caused by the main buoy breaking, they believe 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can be removed in only 5 years.

Other researchers have developed magnetic springs made of carbon nanotubes. They claim that these can decompose microplastics by generating “short-lived chemicals called reactive oxygen species, which trigger chain reactions that chop the various long molecules that make up microplastics into tiny and harmless segments that dissolve in water.” Although these have only been tested in laboratory conditions, the researchers are confident that they can be deployed on a larger scale.

Physicists from the Kaunas University of Technology in Lithuania have created cellulose based plastic that can biodegrade within 2 years. It serves the same function as normal plastic, as it is durable, malleable, and transparent. The big difference, of course, is that it won’t be around for hundreds or thousands of years.

Furthermore, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, who is the current president of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, has created an awareness campaign against single use plastics. She is pushing for national governments to create policies that limit unnecessary plastic usage. She claims “we have 127 countries that have passed legislation in the use of single-use plastic bags. So, I think that we are seeing a very strong response from the international community.”

Overall, plastic is one of the most important substances ever created. Yet it has become one of the biggest scourges of the environment. It even threatens the creatures that created it.

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