a world without plastic

can we conscience it?

I mean can we bring it into our conscience—our collective moral sense of what’s good? Can we even fathom what a world without plastic would be like? What it would entail to eliminate plastic from our diets? And I say diets, as though we eat it, because we do. We eat, drink, breathe, even birth, plastic.

It’s the bane of our modern existence. And when I look around myself I can’t unsee it.

In the smallest things, like making an inspiring birth day collage for myself, I find I’m putting it together with plastic tape. I have a metal refillable ink pen, but I also have a small bag of other pens and they are, each and every one, plastic. The wires that run from everything, plastic. Try buying food without incurring plastic. I know incurring seems like an unneccessarily excessive word since it usually means cost, as in ‘to incur a cost.’

That’s exactly what’s happening here. Our convenience comes at a great cost.

Here’s a great art piece called The Plastic Bag Store that helps us experience the extent of what words struggle to convey. And a short video of Frohardt’s approach:

And here’s a great article from Orion on the history of the plastic bag and how Americans had to be convinced to shift to a disposal mindset.

The story we’re told is that it’s for our safety—everything safety sealed—but what if we’re not only sealing in nutritional goodness, but micro-nano-plastics that shed from the seal itself? The masks we were told to wear during covid shed nanoplastics that we inhale.

What isn’t plastic these days? Fabrics have microfibers for stretch. Made of plastic. Unless you’re buying Lululemon’s new athleisure wear designed by Geno that’s plant-based nylon. Cosmetics have microbeads, or have had. Regulations seem irregular. Nanoparticles of plastic for keeping our skin suitably abrased. Plastic containers for everything. Industrial uses of plastic—tires, building wrap, packaging, car parts, machine parts. Then everyday uses—kitchen utensils, containers, toys that kids put in their mouths, diapers, wipes…

Maybe a better question to ask is, “What percentage of your world ISN’T plastic?”

You see why I’m so frightened? Maybe not yet. Let me explain a little further. Multiply what you use each day by 8 billion other humans, more or less. We could maybe discount the few who live in the bush and carry less plastic. Estimates of the amount of plastic created run towards 8300 million tonnes (see my report below for graphics that help us see that huge amount).

I always had the story in my head that it doesn’t biodegrade, which seemed odd. How could we make something out of nature that won’t return somehow into nature? Well it does, but eons after my life, in some cases. Or, in others, sooner. Yet that degradation has its costs. Our convenience comes at a cost. Go figure.

So, I apologize for being awol from blogging duties since the last Earth Day post where I highlighted my amazing classmates. I’ve been immersed in plastics for a report I did for Foundations in Environmental Studies with Dr. Philip Stewart and other guest teachers. I’m including it here so you can at least scan to see the extent of my learning.

This one was a doozy. I’ve known generally about plastics and even added it into my stand-up sets, but weeks of immersion in the dire details of how plasticized we’ve become made me literally sick to my stomach. In fact, I handed it in late because I had to look after myself in the process. It is truly overwhelming, so please take that as a trigger warning. Yet proceed anyway because the sooner we all wake up to this situation, the sooner we can activate solutions.

A swan makes a nest out of plastic trash near a sewage drain on the banks of the Danube River, close to downtown Belgrade, Serbia, on April 18, 2022. ANDREJ ISAKOVIC/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Planet Plastic

What will it take to unbind our planet from a plague of plastic waste?

Introduction

Where does all the plastic waste go? The short answer is a paradox, as plastic waste goes nowhere as well as everywhere. An equally valid question would be, “Where doesn’t all the plastic waste go?” The majority of research articles and grey literature cited in this report use the word ‘ubiquitous’ (Anand et al., 2023; Aves et al., 2024; Bucci et al., 2020; Fu et al., 2023; Gupta et al., 2023; Koelmans et al., 2022; Landrigan et al., 2023b; Morrison et al., 2022; Rahman et al., 2021; UNEP, 2024) to describe the current state of plastics on Earth, even going so far as to say that we extended the ubiquity of plastics beyond our own atmosphere when we placed a polyamide flag on the moon (Amaral-Zettler et al., 2020). Additionally, it is likely there are plastic parts in the space junk from our satellites and exploratory missions since 1969.

Ubiquitous is indeed the right word as it means ‘where-and’, or where isn’t it? In other words, ‘every-where’. Researchers also describe the state of planetary plastic as pervasive, abundant, persistent, widely ranging, a wicked problem (Landrigan et al., 2023b), at a crisis level of accumulation globally (Morrison et al., 2022; Sanchez, 2020), potentially the biggest threat to the global ecosystem (Zahid et al., 2024), and one of humanity’s irrevocable legacies for centuries to come (Gkoutselis et al., 2024).

To understand how ‘ubiquitous’ is not an overstatement, consider whether it is possible to go through one day without adding to the existing levels of plastics, or without using any of the plastics already in our environment. What choices would need to be made in everyday routines to eliminate plastic from our human diet (Plastic, 2024)? Evidence is clear that we are not only making use of plastics in all realms of life, but we are also eating, drinking, and breathing plastic particles (Aves et al., 2024; Rahman et al., 2021; Wen et al., 2024). Micro and nano plastics have been found in human blood, urine, and organs, as well as in breast milk, placental tissue, and testis (Marfella et al., 2024; Ye et al., 2024).

The impacts of plastic production, use, and disposal (or lack thereof) are so widespread and negative that plastic pollution is now considered in equal measure to the impacts of climate change and habitat destruction on our planet. Taken together, they drive The Anthropocene, the current, though still unofficially recognised, geological period in which human activity dominates environmental changes (Geyer, 2020; Landrigan et al., 2023b). Some researchers are even suggesting that we go further and recognise the immense impacts of plastic on our ecological time by calling it The Plasticene instead of The Anthropocene (Albazoni et al., 2024). Others suggest we acknowledge the role that plastic and its micro- nano- particles (MNPs) play as geomaterials in Earth’s carbon cycle, now that the amounts of plastics found in some ecosystems rival the quantity of natural organic carbon (Stubbins et al., 2021). By so doing, we can better investigate, understand, and navigate the impacts and potential perils of this pervasive tide of plastic.

Literature Review

Past -- painting a picture of linear plastic progress

In addressing the question of where all the plastic waste goes and how we got to this ubiquitously plasticised state of affairs, we investigate where plastic came from in the first place. For, although plastics may now be every-where, they have not always been every-when.

Despite the profundity of their impacts, ranging from life-enhancing to deadly, plastics only came into existence just over 100 years ago. See Figure 1 below for the quantification of plastic production over time since 1907. Plastic is a synthetic, meaning man-made, polymer, or material of many (poly) parts (mers) of roughly equal size that are bonded together. Natural polymers include silk, rubber, horn, hair, DNA, and cellulose (Geyer, 2020), which was a component of the first semi-synthetic polymer created in 1855 and patented as celluloid in 1869. Ironically, given the current environmental threats caused by plastic, the original invention of celluloid was motivated by the unsustainable demand for ivory billiard balls, whose popularity was threatening elephant extinction in the mid to late 1800’s (Institute, 2024). In 1907, the first fully synthetic polymer, or plastic, was created by a chemist, and called Bakelite.

Most of the common polymers still in use today were discovered and developed between the world wars. The commercial brands Nylon®, a polyamide, and Plexiglass® the polymethyl methacrylate used in aircraft windows, supported the war efforts, but after WWII they and other newly minted plastics rapidly made their way into mainstream production and consumption. Development and public uptake was so quick that by the 1950s, all of the main synthetic plastics had been formulated, including polyvinyl chloride (PVC), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), and polystyrene (PS) (Landrigan et al., 2023b).

Fig. 1. Timeline of plastic invention, discovery, production, and subsequent pollution. Plexiglass®, Polymethyl methacrylate (not shown, discovered in 1928); MARPOL, International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships; PET, polyethylene terephthalate. (Amaral-Zettler et al., 2020)

As evident in Figure 1, by 1950 there was an estimated 2 million metric tons of plastic already in existence. Each subsequent year saw a rise from the year before, except for dips in 1975, 1980, and 2008 (Geyer, 2020), which are apparent in this graph, but not as pronounced due to scale. The dips in 1975 and 1980 were caused by the oil crises and the drop in 2008 was a result of the Global Recession, thus indicating the fossil fuel-based nature of nearly 99% of plastic production (Gupta et al., 2023).

Vast scales are difficult to comprehend, however Figure 2 helps to conceptualise the colossal quantity of plastic that has been created since 1950. Some estimates put the overall plastic creation between 1950 and 2017 at 9.2 billion metric tons, nearly 1 billion metric tons higher than shown in Figure 2 (Geyer, 2020). Either way, it is a near-unfathomable amount of synthetic material. Given that the current global population is 8.1 billion people, we could assign roughly one metric ton of plastic to each living person (Landrigan et al., 2023b). Another way of visualising this is to say that for each human alive today, roughly 15 carbon-based doppelgangers of the same mass have been created out of plastic. The difference between the two is the capacity for life.

A more current statistic updates our estimates in a disturbing way, indicating that humans generated 139 million metric tonnes of single-use plastic waste in 2021 alone, which equates to more than 13,700 Eiffel Towers (UNDP, 2024). Even given all the evidence of harmful ecological and human health impacts, single-use and short-lived plastics still make up more than one third of our current plastic production and this amount is expected to nearly double by the end of this year. (Landrigan et al., 2023b)

While this gives us a picture of the global production of plastic and its waste, scaling down to the plastic waste of each person may help us see more clearly. On average, 1kg of solid waste is generated per person each day, with 10% of this waste estimated to be plastic. Multiplying the 2019 population of 7.5 billion people times 1kg totals 274 Mt per year (Geyer, 2020). Today’s population stands at about 8.1 billion people and there has been no sign of slowing or stopping the tide of overall plastic production or individual plastic waste generation. In fact, over the 75-year career of accelerated plastic production and consumption, roughly half of all plastics in existence today have been created in the past 25 years.

Why, instead of remediating or eliminating this material that is so clearly unsustainable, have we doubled down since 2000 on the creation of plastic (Data, 2024)? Aside from the demand from emerging economies, the recent rise in plastic manufacturing, particularly of single-use plastics, is driven by petrochemical companies diversifying their portfolios in the face of growing demand for renewable energy. Six of the main multinational fossil fuel companies have dramatically increased their plastics production, from Exxon’s 35% increase to the 364% increase by Indian HPLC-Mittal (Landrigan et al., 2023b).

Any way you estimate, visualise, or even justify it, we are being overrun by an untenable volume of synthetic materials, whose input into the Earth’s systems far outweighs our known and safe means of either disposing of it or reintegrating it. Afterall, plastics emerged out of a need to prevent the extinction of elephants, yet today we are measuring the metric tons of plastic production and waste by comparing them to the equivalent numbers in billions of elephants, which are sadly still facing extinction.

Fig. 2. Visualisation of the scale of plastic production from 1950 – 2017. Janet A. Beckley (Georgia, 2017)

Figure 2 also indicates percentages of plastic waste disposal. Plastic production is currently not standardised or regulated which results in complex chemical compositions. On average, plastics are comprised of 94% pure polymer and 6% additives. That seems simple enough, yet there are tens of thousands of additives used, depending on the base polymer and the intended application for the finished plastic. Additives can serve to make the plastic softer, more pliable, fire resistant, colourful, and preserve it from breaking down (Geyer, 2020). The economic incentive is too low for producers to navigate those complexities when they can readily produce new plastics, which has meant that less than 10% of all plastics ever created have been recycled (Landrigan et al., 2023b).

While a slightly larger amount has been incinerated, and while this could be a positive circular economy approach, more research is necessary to ascertain the potential negative ecological costs involved, including the high quantities of microplastics and heavy metals in the ash, inadequate facilities for incineration and disposal, and the greenhouse gases emitted (Anshassi et al., 2021; Shen et al., 2021).

The 79% of waste sent to landfill in Figure 2 does not account for the state of landfills. As we continue to pile on the waste, plastic and otherwise, we are fast running out of space and the quality control of waste management across countries varies widely. What is entirely missing from the depiction in Figure 2 is that about 25% of annual plastic waste generation (82 million tons in 2022 alone) is mismanaged and goes directly into the environment (Data, 2024).

There has been a marked lack of responsibility taken by plastic producers, as well as by end users regarding plastic waste (Gupta et al., 2023), which has led to unprecedented levels of plastic pollution worldwide.

Present – levels and impacts of plastics in water, earth, air, even humans

Water

Rare is the human today who is not aware of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), the regions in the Pacific Ocean where currents pool the surface layer of plastic debris into miles-wide piles (Lebreton et al., 2019). Aside from the visual affront of such vast quantities of synthetics stockpiling in our marine and freshwater systems, most humans are also aware of the less visible impacts of plastics on living creatures. Such statistics as “roughly 52% of sea turtles have consumed plastics” (Gupta et al., 2023), are tragically too common. Interestingly, an estimated 75-86% of the macroplastics (plastics > 5cm) in the GPGP is discarded fishing gear, such as buoys, traps, lines and nets (Data, 2023b).

Plastic has become so intertwined with every aspect of our lives that we struggle to separate from it. The first step is to see the extent of our entanglement. As in the GPGP example, we are now readily measuring larger plastics, however exposure to the elements cause plastics to break down into microplastics (MPs), which are variously defined as <5mm (Albazoni et al., 2024), 1–5000 μm (Aves et al., 2024), and “particles ranging in size from 1 μm–5 mm, which is comparable to the size of a sesame seed or smaller” (Zajac, 2023).

 Smaller still are the nanoplastics (NPs), particles <1 μm (Aves et al., 2024). There is still debate on the definitions, with some studies setting NPs at <1000 nm (1 μm) and others at <100 nm (0.1 μm). This variability in defining micro- nano- particles (MNPs) alerts us to the need for agreement and standardisation (Rahman et al., 2021; Ye et al., 2024).

Greater technology is required to measure the widespread integration into the water systems of these smaller and smaller particles (Mandal et al., 2024; Nazeer et al., 2024). We also must be wary of dismissing their impact based on their small size. As they fragment, the additives used to create the original product become bioavailable to the surrounding environment. Many of these plasticisers are known neurotoxicants, endocrine disruptors, and carcinogens. The rest are still unmeasured which, by no means, means they are benign (Landrigan et al., 2023b; Rahman et al., 2021). What it does mean is that standardisation and regulation of plastics is imperative to the health of the entire planet (Morrison et al., 2022).

Earth

Less widely known by the general public is the extent to which plastics have infiltrated the soils which grow our foods, both plants and the animals that eat those plants. The level of MNPs in soil is estimated at 4-23 times higher than releases to the oceans (Maddela et al., 2023). MNPs enter the earth via landfill runoff (Wen et al., 2024) and also via the modern agricultural use of plastic equipment, containers, sewage sludge for fertiliser, mulching films, irrigation systems, and materials for packaging, greenhouses, and harvesting (Mandal et al., 2024). In addition, there is MNP-latent atmospheric and water deposition into the earth (Maddela et al., 2023). Figure 3 provides a visual for these distributions.

Plastics adsorb on plant surfaces and, when incorporated into the plant, delay germination by blocking pores. MNPs also leach their chemical additives, potentially blocking the plant’s ability to absorb minerals from the soil, thus lowering their nutritional content. Due to their miniscule size, there are currently no adequate measures or estimates of nanoplastic pollution in soils or plants, making NPs a currently-unknown environmental biohazard (Maddela et al., 2023; Wen et al., 2024; Ye et al., 2024). Although humans inhale MNPs as well as absorbing them through the skin, ingestion remains the main intake pathway, which means the intestinal microbiome bears the brunt of the MNPs incorporated via food and water. Nano-scale plastics are so small that they can readily move out of the intestines and into the rest of the body, making their initial origins in our food systems difficult to trace (Wen et al., 2024)

Beyond the chemical leaching that MNPs can do in whatever biome they find themselves, they are also prone to colonisation by biofilms (Amaral-Zettler et al., 2020) which make suitable habitats for harmful soil microbes. Fungi are one such microbe type that shows a preference for plastic debris, now known as ‘plastiphily’. Recognition of this symbiotic relationship and further investigation will aid in addressing the current planetary burdens of both fungal infections and plastic pollution (Gkoutselis et al., 2024).

Air

Just like any other small-sized airborne particulate, MNPs are readily moved by wind currents and have been shown to travel long distances, eventually depositing in remote, sparsely-populated locations, even at levels comparable to urban sites worldwide (Aves et al., 2024). MNPs serve as chemical carriers to these remote regions, releasing their own plastic additives and whatever else may have hitched a ride, such as air pollutants, microbes, and non-native species vectors (Anand et al., 2023; Chen et al., 2023).

Having only recently garnered scientific study, the variety of airborne forms include fragments, pellets, spheres, fibres, films, and foam. Some research even suggests that MNPs cannot be ruled out from having an impact on the Earth’s albedo by influencing cloud formation (Gupta et al., 2023).

The recent global pandemic saw a marked spike in personal protective equipment, including face masks that shed MNPs (Zahid et al., 2024). The health impacts for humans of inhaled MNPs, and their release of chemical additives and pollutant vectors, range from respiratory problems, neurotoxicity, cancer, and cell death (Gupta et al., 2023). Airborne exposures can be just as high, even higher, indoors with carpets, clothing, and packaging all shedding MNPs (Morrison et al., 2022).

Fig. 3. An overarching view of Plastic Production, Waste, Waste Management, and Environmental Deposition of MNPs. Top Left -- Global primary plastic production by different industrial sectors in 2019. Top Middle -- global primary plastic production and waste generation by polymer type in 2019. Top Right -- Waste management percentage in 2019. Middle Right – percentage of plastic waste in fresh and marine waters. Bottom Right – percentage increase of MNPs (micro- nano- plastics) on ocean surface 2000-2019. All statistics from ourworldindata.org (Mandal et al., 2024).

Humans

As without, so within. With MNPs permeating the Earth’s water, soil, and air, it can be no surprise that the blood, tissue, and lungs of humans are also laced with MNPs.

For, while plastics do not biodegrade rapidly in timeframes that benefit human lifecycles, they do eventually break down into smaller and smaller pieces via mechanical forces such as abrasion and the weathering effects of UV light and heat (Corcoran, 2022). In fact, the decades-long fragmentation process has happened quite rapidly, relative to the mere 75-year history of plastic production, and also in relation to the estimated half-lives for plastic bottles at 58 years on the lower end, all the way up to 1,200 years for plastic pipes (Koelmans et al., 2022). Breakdown might initially seem positive, however a great majority of the plasticising additives that are released into the environment, whether into water, soil, air, or a creature’s digestive system, are toxic and generally unregulated (Albazoni et al., 2024; Landrigan et al., 2023b). Only a few, such as BPA (bisphenol A) and phthalates have been studied and regulated due to their negative impacts on health, human as well as the wider ecosystem (Morrison et al., 2022).

In addition to the breakdown of macroplastics into secondary micro- and nano- plastics, in recent years primary production of MNPs for cosmetics, medicine, and agriculture have increased the quantities of boundary-crossing plastic nanoparticles into the biomes of Earth, including our own human biomes (Koelmans et al., 2022).

It has been estimated that the annual human intake of MNPs via ingestion, inhalation and directly through the skin, ranges between 39,000 and 52,000 particles, with that outer limit equating to 1.8kg of internalised plastic (Rahman et al., 2021). Their slow-to-degrade, or persistent, nature coupled with their propensity to leach chemicals may result in a cascade of internal systems reactions such as inflammation, immune responses, metabolic upset, neurological damage, DNA damage, and cancer (Anand et al., 2023). Additionally, their persistence nature may limit the potential elimination of MNPs from the body (Gupta et al., 2023).

In the current dominant culture, money often speaks loudest, so Figure 4 serves to illustrate the threats plastics pose to human health via the economic costs implicated in continued unmitigated production, use, and mismanaged waste.

Fig. 4. Health costs of Plastic from Production to Use. X’s highlight unknowns where more research is needed. PPP, purchasing power parity; PM_2.5, particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less; CO₂, carbon dioxide; Gt, Gigatons; CO₂e, carbon dioxide equivalent; DEHP, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate; PBDE, polybrominated diphenyl ether; BPA, bisphenol A. Designed in 2022 by Will Stahl-Timmins. (Landrigan et al., 2023a)

Discussion for the Future of Plastics – standardisation and regulation, remediation, circular systems, and AI

Standardisation and Regulation

Plastic pollution is not new news. Standardising the size of micro particles of plastics to <5mm was set by NOAA (the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in 2008 and adopted by 2009 (Gupta et al., 2023). 15 years of data exists to confirm the alarming presence of MNPs in soil, freshwater, seawater, air, and now human tissue, yet many research gaps remain. What seems to be challenging the forward progress of researchers is the complexity of cataloguing plastics that are industry-level unregulated conglomerations of polymers with thousands of additives (Koelmans et al., 2022). The level of adsorption, or release, of these various additive chemicals into the environment depends upon their initial structure. Until standards are set and regulated at the source point of plastic production, environmental and human health risk assessments of plastic pollution, particularly MNP-sized, will be inaccurate (Burrows et al., 2024).

Design standards centred in incorporating non-toxic, environmentally friendly additives into plastic production at the outset also support healthier end-of-life management as the product breaks down (Landrigan et al., 2023b). In addition to regulating the types of plastics produced, stemming the tide will also rely on regulating the amounts produced, especially of single or short-term use plastics (UNEP, 2024). Standardisation of tests that incorporate the morphological complexities of plastics is also essential if we are to adequately measure the end-point impacts of plastic pollution deposited into our natural systems, including human (Bucci et al., 2020).

Remediation

In a swirling sea of anthropogenically created trash, there are inspired individuals and organizations innovating to stem the toxic tide. Methods of remediation include physical, chemical, and biological means (Albazoni et al., 2024).

Current means of physically removing MNPs in wastewater treatment plants include filtering the particles larger than 100 μm, allowing them to settle to the bottom, or skimming them off the top (Fu et al., 2023). To capture the smaller particles, Fionn Ferroin of Ireland has created a magnetic filter that attaches to home laundry machines or to ocean-going vessels to clean as they go (Ferreira, 2024), since our oceans are where at least .5% (or 1.7 million tons in 2022 alone) of our waste ends up (Data, 2023a). Recent research out of Toronto, Canada has found a way to prevent garments from shedding fibres during laundering in the first place (Grose, 2023). As roughly 13% of all plastics produced are for synthetic fibres, primarily for fashion, and our modern stretchy clothing routinely shed MNPs (Landrigan et al., 2023b), this is a start in a vast fibre field often driven by the short term economic gains of fast fashion.

Chemical means of MNP-scale plastic remediation include oxidation, photocatalysis, and the use of solvents to break down the plastics (Albazoni et al., 2024). In addition, there has been recent innovation in repurposing existing plastics, as one study has done with polystyrene (PS) foam, primarily used for packaging and a major component of the single-use plastic pollution known as “white pollution”, that has repurposed PS into an anti-corrosion coating (Jiao et al., 2024).

Biological means of remediation include the use of microorganisms, such as bacteria and fungi, and enzymes to degrade plastics. Overall, there appears to be a wide variety of fungi that are effective at degrading plastics into more environmentally friendly components (Anand et al., 2023), while one study has found augmenting the fungal mycelium greatly increases their efficacy (1.5-12.5 times greater), making it a cost-effective way to remediate polluted water in a matter of days (Fu et al., 2023). Another research initiative has found that a form of the enzyme cutinase has shown the highest degradation rates so far for polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is the main plastic used for plastic water bottles and other single-use packaging (Britton et al., 2024). Low-density polyethylene, also known as polyester, PET’s more fibrous form, has also potentially met its match with research showing that several arthropods (worms and moths) have gut bacteria that degrades these particular MNPs (Zahid et al., 2024).

Circular Economy

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation promotes a circular economy approach to plastic as a less drastic, yet still intensive, overhaul of our currently unconscious relationship to plastics (Foundation, 2024). Investing in the innovation and implementation of alternative materials to replace plastics must also be part of a multi-pronged approach to the plastic problem. Examples include Humble Bee Bio, based in Wellington, New Zealand, who have been inspired by biomimicry to research and develop a bioplastic substitute for nanoplastics such as those used in cosmetics, medicine, and textiles (Bio, 2024). Lululemon, in alliance with Geno, has pioneered a plant-based, biodegradable nylon that is now part of their line of athleisure wear (Rehfeldt, 2023). These initiatives are inherently based upon the wisdom that nature is cyclical, and therefore being able to recycle material is essential to the health of the planet.

AI and other tech

The application of emerging technologies such as machine learning (AI) to accurately identify the chemical constituents throughout the lifecycle of plastics, for safety’s sake, is essential (Engineering, 2024). Bioinformatics is also showing promise as an effective tool for breaking down plastic debris by using tech to identify the most beneficial enzymes for degrading the toxic chemical additives of the plastics (Anand et al., 2023). Other cutting-edge means of mapping and facilitating the elimination of MNPs can be found in microbial level genetic engineering, omics (the biomolecular level study of the structure, function, and dynamics of an organism), and nanotechnology (Mandal et al., 2024).

Conclusion

With such widespread prevalence, indeed ubiquity, this report has touched on only an MNP-sized fraction of plastic’s pervasive reach on our planet, from its inception to its current boundary-stretching saturation point, and onwards to innovations for remediating and recoiling its reckless reach. There is much valuable data and research that is outside the scope of this report’s overview.

While urgency is required to address the environmental impacts of all the plastic we are drowning in, it is advisable to learn from the past by taking a wider systems analysis approach to this particular wicked problem. Knowing what we don’t know, which is what we will do with all the plastic we have created, or the extent to which the breakdown of larger plastic products into MNPs is negatively impacting all ecosystems, it would also seem wise to turn off the tap. Or the least we could do is slow it to a trickle while we collate the data and set our collective intelligence, including the rapidly evolving machine-learning and nanotechnologies, to work on standardising and regulating the production of new plastics, remediating the poisonous and deleterious impacts of the existing plastics, and setting up systems of introduction, use, and reintegration that are more in line with Earth’s inherently wise circular systems.

Will the plague also provide the cure? Perhaps a solution can be located within the nature of the problem. By nature, plastics are sturdy, lightweight, water repellant, and inexpensive to make. It is these same qualities that make them potentially environmentally damaging (Bucci et al., 2020). Likewise, the nature of MNPs to range widely in size, shape, and chemical composition, and to be of low density and high persistence, makes them hard to categorise or anticipate (Koelmans et al., 2022). And the fact that atmospheric MNP’s follow the winds, instead of human-created socio-political borders, means that Australia’s urban plastic pollution can be found in the remote waterways of New Zealand’s Southern Alps, as only one example (Aves et al., 2024).

We can no longer pretend we are separate. Ingested MNP’s mean that the mother giving life to a child may also pass on endocrine disrupting chemicals that caught a ride on the NPs in her reproductive system (Morrison et al., 2022). Blood and brain barriers, as well as geographic borders and boundaries, are meaningless when it comes to addressing the plague of plastic with which we are slowly suffocating our planet (Gupta et al., 2023). When waste from developed nations poisons the rivers, soils, air, and lifeforms of less developed nations, we can no longer silo our profits and ignore the need for Social Environmental Justice (SEJ) (Landrigan et al., 2023b).

If we own that we are all responsible for all of it, then we must act together to manage and remediate the 8300 million metric tons of plastics already on the planet that are destined for decomposition into smaller and smaller ingestible, inhalable, and imbibe-able particles. Additionally, it is also necessary to slow the flow of new plastics into the field. In other words, the boundary-ignoring ubiquity of plastics requires us to work together as a globe to set healthy boundaries for them. One could even say that plastics present a crisis of maturity for humanity. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC), a branch of the United Nations Environment Programme, is just such a mature-minded multilateral coalition taking on this task. 170 members have been convening since 2022 with the aim to end plastic pollution globally by developing a legally binding instrument before the end of 2024 (UNEP, 2024a).

Recommendations

Our ultimate best solution is to stop plastic production altogether while we remediate current levels of plastic pollution. As this is unrealistic, even in the long term, and given the current statistics of where plastic pollution will take us in the near future, a combination of reducing production and redesigning plastics is recommended. By regulating the use of chemical additives to minimise toxic leakage when the plastics break down, and incorporating pro-oxidants or other means of effective, non-toxic breakdown at their end-use point, great progress could be made from the current plastic situation (Landrigan et al., 2023b). To further remediate existing plastics, it is necessary to expedite continued research and implementation of physical, chemical, and biological methods (Ferreira, 2024; Matei, 2021).

Additionally, encouraging the innovation and education necessary to increase our use of non-plastic options (Plastic, 2024) by cultivating awareness among the public of the toxic earth-wide health impacts of plastics, a shift from single-use behaviours in our current unlimited growth mindset to circular economy models is also advised (Foundation, 2024; Gupta et al., 2023).

References

Albazoni, H. J., Al-Haidarey, M. J. S., & Nasir, A. S. (2024). A Review of Microplastic Pollution: Harmful Effect on Environment and Animals, Remediation Strategies. Journal of Ecological Engineering, 25(2), 140-157. https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/176802

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