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meganwolff2@Bennington.edu

Megan J. Wolff, Ph.D., MPH

Health Policy Director

PLASTIC POLLUTION 101

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History is not inevitable.

Problems that are not inevitable are solvable.

Historians who study history to inform policy wind up asking these basic questions: “How did we get here?” What are the origins of the present crisis?

A sure lesson we receive from from looking at the past is that History is not inevitable. It is contingent on the decisions and actions of the humans who live through it. And the problems that arise in history are not inevitable, either.

They are created by us, and they are solvable by us.

In scientific and medical history, we find that medicine itself is rarely what cures sickness but rather political action. Campaigns to stop contaminating the water, to dry out the breeding grounds of the mosquitoes, and so on put a stop to the dying.

The answers were simple. The hard part was creating the political will to implement them.

The same is true of the plastics problem. To solve it, we shoudl apply the three Essential Principles for Prevention:

•Scientific discovery

•Willingness of scientists to translate science into policy

•Willingness of elected officials and policy makers to act on and not ignore science

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Nearly 10 billion tons of plastic have been produced since 1950

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The human population has tripled since 1950; plastic production has increased 130-fold.

Production is on track to triple again by 2060.

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The invention of the ship was the invention of the shipwreck.

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World War II

1939-1945

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Nylon replaced silk in parachutes. [CLICK]
Acrylic, or Plexiglas, made optically perfect cockpit windows and enclosures for gunners. [CLICK]

[Source for cockpit photo: https://digital.sciencehistory.org/works/g445cf04j]

Polyethylene was used to insulate cables like the large ones you see here, [CLICK]

. . . which made the newly developed technology of radar possible. [CLICK]

PVC film — think Saran Wrap — was used to protect entire airplanes from corrosion during trans-Atlantic shipping. [CLICK]

[Source for ship photo: https://www.businessinsider.com/british-plan-to-hunt-german-uboats-from-ice-aircraft-carrier-2021-4]

Synthetics were deployed in supplies issued to the troops. U.S. plastic production increased by 300 percent during the war. But manufacturers knew that once the war was over, they'd have to find markets during peacetime. [CLICK]

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Industry looked to grow not by moving plastic into people's homes, but through them.

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Where is all the plastic going?

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Roman Mikhailiuk / shutterstock

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“Plastic pollution is visible everywhere,

but it is also invisible everywhere.”

Phillip Landrigan, MD

In its absolute and final disposition, we suspect that the destination of most of the plastic in existence on earth is microplastics.

Plastic doesn’t break down in the environment. Instead, it breaks up into tinier and tinier pieces. A “microplastic” is anything smaller than a pencil eraser, but as it goes down it can become nanoplastic, which is smaller than a blood cell. And it goes smaller still. At this point, we have no evidence that plastic ever returns to its base elements – which is something that scientists like to talk about over drinks at big meetings.

It is worth thinking of plastic sort of like skin – wherever it is, it is constantly shedding micro and nano plastics.

The plastic that hasn’t yet broken into fragments is what is referred to as a “toxicity debt.”

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Microplastic filament on a snowflake

Li, L., Luo, Y., Peijnenburg, W. J., Li, R., Yang, J., & Zhou, Q. (2020). “Confocal measurement of microplastics uptake by plants.” MethodsX, 7, 100750

Uptake in Plants

In this slide you can see a microfilament caught on the edge of a snowflake.

Microfilaments, by the way, are what come off of our synthetic clothing. They are shed by fleeces and sportswear and any textile made from a synthetic base.

This second image haunts me. It shows a nanoplastic that has been drawn into the vasculature of a plant. Not surprisingly plants choked with microplastics have lower crop yields. Which is scary.

Some of that reduction is due to what is happening to the soil as much as the plant. Microplastics interact with organisms in soil, such as soil dwelling invertebrates, terrestrial fungi, and plant‐pollinators.

They may arrive on fields by way of sewer sludge, which is spread as a fertilizer, but they are often also directly applied to croplands in the form of pesticides, fertilizers, and even seeds that are directly encapsulated in plastic.

These microplastics can change the physical structure of earth and limit its capacity to hold water. That can affect plants by reducing root growth and nutrient uptake.

These plastics remain longer than any other element in the agricultural soil. Microplastics from sewer sludge have been detected up to 15 years after application. Microplastics applied directly with seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides are cumulative, and build up year after year without cease.

According to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), agricultural soils now store between 4 and 28% more microplastics than oceanic basins.

recent estimates of plastic-carbon in soil suggest that plastics may exceed total microbial carbon by 2095. (Dunlop ¹⁴⁵⁾

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Microplastics on the body of an insect.

Adirondack State Park, January, 2023

Photos:

Robert and Heather Bolster

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Lung - May 2021

Meconium - June 2021

Sputum - Jan 2022

Blood - May 2022

Breast Milk - June 2022

Liver - Aug 2022

Urine - Dec 2022

Veins - Feb 2023

Testes/Semen - March 2023

Heart Tissue - Aug 2023

Kidney - Feb 2024

Where are the microplastics?

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“...total plastics mass concentration in brains increased over 50% in the past 8 years.”

“Polyethylene was the predominant polymer”

“MNPs are selectively accumulated into the human brain.”

The brains of people with a history of alzheimer’s or dementia contained 5-10x more plastic

Parallel trends: 1. rising levels of microplastics 2. increasing global rates of age-corrected Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia

The parallels between the present data showing an increasing trend in MNP concentrations in the brain with exponentially rising environmental presence of microplastics19–21 and increasing global rates of age-corrected Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia22–25, given the potential role of anionic nanoplastics in protein aggregation26, add urgency to understanding the impacts of MNP on human health.

Douglas Main, "Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show: ‘There’s nowhere left untouched’" The Guardian, Aug 21, 2024.

From my understanding, this is big news. Researchers have been unsure about whether microplastics can cross the blood brain barrier in humans -- though they've known for some time that they do so in mice and zebrafish, causing dementia-like symptoms.

The article reports mostly on a publication by Matthew Campen et al at the University of New Mexico, which is in pre-release (still undergoing peer review) on the National Institute of Health Website.

As reported in the Guardian:

"An examination of the livers, kidneys and brains of autopsied bodies found that all contained microplastics, but the 91 brain samples contained on average about 10 to 20 times more than the other organs. The results came as a shock, according to the study’s lead author Matthew Campen, a toxicologist and professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico.

The researchers found that 24 of the brain samples, which were collected in early 2024, measured on average about 0.5% plastic by weight.

“It’s pretty alarming,” Campen said. “There’s much more plastic in our brains than I ever would have imagined or been comfortable with.”

The study describes the brain as “one of the most plastic-polluted tissues yet sampled”.

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What does it mean?

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Researchers have identified 16,325 chemicals in plastics.

March 2024

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WHAT IS PLASTIC?

Polymer Backbone:

Carbon-Carbon Bonds

Multiple Chemical Additives. Many are highly toxic

Phthalates, Bisphenols, PFAS, Brominated

Flame Retardants

Slide by Philip Landrigan, M.D.

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Plastic is not inert. It has biological consequences.

This volume of growth may be unsurvivable.

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Hormones are the signalling system that conducts the symphony of life.

Cellular mechanisms are amplification systems that allow those systems to have effects

They intensify by orders of magnitude: hundreds of thousands, or millions

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Periods of Greatest Vulnerability

The timing makes the poison.

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Prenatal Dose:

1 part per billion

9-16 days gestation

Newbold, RR, et al. "Developmental exposure to endocrine disruptors and the obesity epidemic." Reproductive toxicology 23.3 (2007): 290-296.

Here is an example from the laboratory.

Of these two mice, the mother of the obese mouse was exposed to DES, a well-known endocrine disrupting chemical at a very specific interval while pregnant – albeit in a very small dose. Though the two mice received the same caloric intake and had the same amount of activity, the one exposed to an EDC during the 9-16 day gestation interval became obese. The offspring of mother mice dosed with the same amount of DES at different points in the pregnancies did not become obese.

After the first generation experienced obesity, a disproportionate number of the next generation experienced it as well, and so on down the line. This is called an epigenetic effect. An outside influence changed the way that the genes of the animal were expressed.

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Artist: ThisCityMaps

EDCs can disrupt brain development, leading to lower IQ, ADHD, and autism-spectrum disorders. This occurs because of the incredible complexity how our brains grow. Imagine the brain cells growing like a subway system being built. Over the course of pregnancy, neural cells divide and multiply very quickly. As they are dividing and multiplying, neurons migrate from the positions where they are formed to their final destinations. They form dense networks of connections with one another while they are doing this, and each connection must be precisely established. All of it is highly interdependent. If it doesn’t function properly, signals don’t reach their intended destinations in the necessary way – like the A train and the 1 train not intersecting, or whatever it is that happens in Boston (image to the right)

It’s a beautiful and amazing process, but it results in what scientists refer to as an “exquisite vulnerability” – which is unparalleled in adults. If you think you’ve seen an uptick in neurodevelopmental disorders in recent years, you aren’t mistaken.

An estimated one in six children in the US has a neurodevelopmental disorder of some sort, which is about 17% of all children.

The National Survey of Children’s Health showed a 42.0% increase in the prevalence of ADHD in American children from 2003 to 2011.

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Autism prevalence has increased 317%

since 2000

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Why is this happening

now?

?

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PLASTIC PACKAGING CONTAINS TOXIC ADDITIVES

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If plastic were a country, it would be the world’s fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter, just ahead of Brazil.

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Amount of Fossil Fuel required…

To make a plastic bottle.

To transport it to market.

Images by Houston Diaz

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THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS HERE

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As renewable energy becomes more affordable and widely used and electric cars are adopted, the demand for fossil fuels is falling.

But the current plastics market is now worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

The fossil carbon industry is pivoting away from producing fuel for heating and transportation.

They are redirecting their investment into plastics and petrochemicals.

It’s understood that plastics, as well as nitrogen fertilizers, are the two real pillars of petrochemicals, which are the engine of growth for fossil fuels.

Oil and gas companies are banking on the increase in plastic to make up for falling demand for fossil fuels as alternative energy becomes more widely available, affordable, and sought after and as electric cars and trucks become the norm rather than the exception. Simply put, plastic is Big Oil’s Plan B, a fact the industry openly acknowledges.

It is clear the petrochemical industry needs to come up with a Plan C that will not hasten climate catastrophe.

Integrated oil and gas companies projected to grow their capacity for additional virgin polymer production by 2025 include Sinopec (+36% growth), ExxonMobil (+35%) and PetroChina (+38%)

In addition, with the implementation of policies outlining increased recycled content targets, the market share of secondary plastics is anticipated to surge to 41% by 2060

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Petrochemical and plastics infrastructure projects

Source: https://oilandgaswatch.org/

since 2012

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“America is segregated,

and so is pollution.”

Dr. Robert Bullard

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How do we solve this?

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The first Earth Day: April 22, 1970

EPA begins operation: Dec 2, 1970

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Image: Christy Rupp

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2023 Polling by Oceana:

79% of voters across the political spectrum are concerned about plastic pollution

79% also support state policies to reduce single-use plastic

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12 states and over 500 cities and towns have a plastic bag ordinance in effect.

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Local Groups and Affiliates Program

Interactive Map: Find the nearest group or create one yourself!

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meganwolff2@Bennington.edu

Thank you!!