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Microplastics Campaign

Spring 2021 Capstone Group

By: Allison Liddle, Anders Eckert, Joey Menzel, Kyra Mann, Laura Rupert & Sam Karthan

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Motivation

Why we are interested in the subject

Ever growing problem (globally)
Microplastic effects are still not fully understood

Problem observed that we wanted to address

Single use plastic bans
Tied in with fossil fuel industries

Relationship to sustainability

Ubiquitous in the environment

Air - microplastics lifted into air
Water - microplastics scattered globally throughout the water column
Health - plastic consumption by humans and animals

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Background

Plastic is a synthetic manufactured material that is derived from fossil fuels
Current estimates project 260 million tons of plastic are consumed per year, accounting for 10% of the total global waste
Microplastics are small microscopic plastic particles defined by their size of 1μm to 5 mm

-Plastics have increasingly become an inevitable part of everyday life as society has integrated and developed a dependency on plastics.

-Within the last decade, it is estimated that there were more plastics manufactured and used worldwide than in the entire previous century, with approximately 50% of plastic consumption consisting of disposable and single-use applications

According to current estimates, 260 million tons of plastics are consumed per year, accounting for 10% of the total global waste.

-With the continual waste stream of single-use plastics in our society, plastics are often not disposed of properly and end up polluting and degrading ecosystems and the environment worldwide. This problem has become ubiquitous and so pervasive that plastics are commonly detected in the oceans, freshwaters, soils and sediment, and the atmosphere (Brahney et al., 2020; Hoellein et al., 2019).

-Plastics contain a wide variety of chemicals that are damaging to human health, some common ones that you might have heard about are phthalates and BPA

-Additionally, Microplastic pollution a lipophilic nature, causing bioaccumulation and biomagnification, which turns these little plastic particles into vectors that carry harmful toxins and disease throughout the water column.

-Ingestion of microplastics has been linked to changes in human chromosomes associated with infertility, obesity, and cancer.

In 2015, the Microbead-Free Waters Act was signed into law by President Obama. This law prohibits the manufacturing and production of microbeads for cosmetic purposes that will be washed off and inevitably be rinsed down the drain. However, this policy does not ban microbeads in products that are not intended to be directly washed down the drain or for other purposes such as lotions and deodorants, there is also debate as to what counts as being washed down the drain. Although the microbead ban is a step in the right direction towards decreasing microplastic water pollution, there are still many primary sources of microplastics, not to mention secondary sources of microplastics that pollute our water systems worldwide.

-Outside of the 2015 Microbead ban in the United States, there has been no other comprehensive policy to address plastic pollution, and legislation has been left up to direct democracy and individual state, county, and/or city discretion. With this bottom-up approach, policies have focused on addressing single-use consumer plastics including plastic bags and straws. While there are some problems with this approach, as legislation needs to address plastic production at the source, this is where universities come in as they could be a large driver of changing the trajectory of societal plastic consumption.

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Background

Why the issue is significant

Plastics are often not disposed of properly and end polluting and degrading ecosystems and the environment worldwide
Plastics contain a wide variety of chemicals that are damaging to human health
Mechanism for biomagnification and bioaccumulation, creating vectors for harmful toxins and disease

Plastic and Microplastic Legislation

2015 Microbead-Free Waters Act
Bottom-up approach used for plastic bans