Paris:
From ocean depths to mountain peaks, humans have littered the planet with tiny bits of plastic. We’ve even absorbed these microplastics into our bodies — with uncertain implications.
Images of plastic pollution have become familiar: a turtle suffocated by a shopping bag, water bottles washed up on the beach or the monstrous “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” of floating garbage.
Millions of tons of plastic produced each year, largely from fossil fuels, end up in the environment and are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces.
“We would not have thought 10 years ago that there could be so many tiny microplastics, invisible to the naked eye, and all around us,” said Jean-Francois Ghiglione, a researcher at the Laboratory of Microbial Oceanography in France.
“And we couldn’t imagine finding them in the human body yet.”
Now, scientific studies are increasingly discovering microplastics in some human organs — including “the lungs, spleen, kidneys and even the placenta,” Ghiglione told AFP.
It may not come as much of a shock that we breathe these airborne particles, especially microfibers from synthetic clothing.
“We know there are microplastics in the air, we know it’s all around us,” said Laura Sadofsky of Hull York Medical School in the UK.
Her team found polypropylene and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in lung tissue and identified fibers from synthetics.
“The surprise for us was how deep it got into the lungs and the size of those particles,” she told AFP.
In March, another study reported the first traces of PET in the blood.
Given the small number of volunteers, some scientists say it’s too early to draw conclusions, but there are concerns that if plastic is in the bloodstream, it could be transported to all organs.
Inhaling plastic for years
In 2021, researchers found microplastics in both maternal and fetal placental tissue, raising “great concern” about the potential impact on fetal development.
But concern is not the same as proven risk.
“If you ask a scientist whether there is a negative effect, he or she says ‘I don’t know,'” says Bart Koelmans, professor of Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality at Wageningen University.
“It’s potentially a big problem, but we don’t have the scientific evidence to positively confirm the effects, if any.”
One hypothesis is that microplastics may be responsible for certain syndromes that impair human health.
Although scientists have recently established their presence in the body, it is likely that people have been eating, drinking and inhaling plastic for years.
In 2019, a shock report from the environmental organization WWF estimated that people ingest and inhale up to five grams of plastic a week — enough to make a credit card.
Koelmans, who disputes the methodology and results of that study, has calculated that the amount is closer to a grain of salt.
“For a lifetime, a grain of salt a week is still a lot,” he told AFP.
While human health studies are yet to be developed, toxicity in certain animals raises concern.
“Small microplastics that are invisible to the naked eye have harmful effects on all the animals we have studied in the marine environment or on land,” says Ghiglione.
He added that the array of chemicals found in these materials — including dyes, stabilizers, flame retardants — can affect growth, metabolism, blood sugar, blood pressure and even reproduction.
The researcher said there should be a “precautionary” approach, and calls on consumers to reduce the number of plastic-wrapped products they buy, especially bottles.
Earlier this year, the United Nations began a process to develop an internationally binding treaty to tackle the global plastic scourge.
It has warned that the world is facing a pollution crisis to match the biodiversity and climate crises.
While the health implications of plastics are unknown, scientists do know the effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution, which, according to Lancet Commission experts on pollution and health, led to 6.7 million people dying prematurely in 2019.
In 2019, some 460 million tons of plastic were used, twice as much as 20 years earlier. Less than 10 percent was recycled.
Annual production of plastic from fossil fuels will reach 1.2 billion tons by 2060, with waste exceeding a billion tons, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development said last month.
“People can’t stop breathing, so even if you change your eating habits, you’re still inhaling them,” Koelmans says.
“They’re everywhere.”
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)