In this modern time of ours, global warming has effectively become the cover-story of disaster. It makes the news headlines, it’s in every tabloid story and almost every scientist has a nose dug into it. Every day, new concepts to mitigate global warming and its effects are discussed; every big company, nation - big or small - are investing in renewable energies and it’s the number one talk of the modern era. Governments are handing out grants to promote renewable energy resources, and everyone’s involved one way or another in the race for global clean energy. Yes, global warming gets to be the cover story of disaster, but is it the worst thing that plagues us? Or is there a scarier devil lurking in the darkness that we’re not made aware of.
We've become accustomed to the warnings and desperate attempts to minimize global warming, but is it the worst thing that plagues us in this modern age of technology? Sure, global warming gets the headlines and makes the cover pages, but is it the most offensive in our bid for the best standards of living?
Its name is plastic pollution. We’re all victims and defaulters of this major environmental scavenge. Most people are still in the dark about how much plastic pollution affects our everyday lives, the extent of its monstrosity and the reaches of its over-spread arms.
We’ve all heard about plastic pollution, we’re all a perpetrator of this unfortunate crime, we’re all being choked by its adverse effects, and it is crippling us and the world we live in, to our very knees.
But first, what is plastic pollution?
Plastic pollution involves the accumulation of plastic waste in the environment which adversely affects the environment, wildlife, wildlife habitats, humans and the eco system.
The first synthetic plastic Bakelite was manufactured in 1907 by a Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland. From this, the development of many synthetic plastics accelerated to the point that plastics have become a vital part of our everyday life. From the covers of our phones, to the ordinary plastic bottles, to the chassis of cars and vital electronics, it has truly become a formal part of our day-to-day activities. It is also used in the manufacture of many composites and lightweight honeycomb structures. Over half of the industrial energy expended is used to make just five products; steel, cement, paper, PLASTIC, and aluminum. An average house has over 87% of products made from plastic or plastic materials. The rate at which we use and dispose plastic makes up for a remarkable plastic waste of over six thousand tons per day. This is a global crisis when we consider that plastic is non-decomposable. The high rate of use of plastic spans from the fact that it is a relatively cheap and durable material.
Plastic pollution can acridly affect lands, waterways and oceans. Living organisms, particularly marine life, can also be affected through entanglement, direct ingestion of plastic waste, or through exposure to the adverse chemicals within plastics that cause degradations in biological functions. Humans are also severely affected by plastic pollution, such as through the disruption of the thyroid hormone axis or hormone levels. In the UK alone, more than 5 million tons of plastic are consumed each year, of which an estimated 24% makes it into recycling systems. That leaves a remaining 3.8 million tons of waste, destined for landfills. Studies show that at the rate of plastic use and dispense, there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050! That is a grave situation when we consider the fact that plastics kill thousands of marine life.
Plastic in oceans decomposes faster than previous studies have shown. This is mainly due to the constant exposure to rain, sun and other environmental conditions resulting in the release of the chemical Bisphenol A. Due to the increased levels of plastic in the oceans, decomposition is slowed down. The Marine Conservancy has predicted the decomposition rates of several plastic products and found that on average, plastic materials take from 50-400 years to decompose! It is predicted that there may be over 300,000 plastic items/km2 of sea surface and 100,000 plastic particles/km2 of seabed.
Plastics have many adverse effects on the environment, some still undiscovered, and some with little studies or research on the extent of its plague on the environment and life in general. There is much still left in the dark about the many effects of plastics and studies are inadequate to explain its poisonous touches on the environment. Plastic pollution is an on-going global crisis and apart from aesthetically damaging the environment, the major acknowledged problems that is inflicted by plastic pollution are as follows:
- Plastic pollution, more so in the macro- and mega- plastics serve as a transport system of organisms to places that is not their natural habitat, affecting the ecosystem of that particular place and disrupting it in ways that studies still can’t predict. This could potentially increase the variability and dispersal of organisms in specific areas that are less biologically diverse.
- Chlorinated plastics can release harmful chemicals into the surrounding soil, which can seep into groundwater or other surrounding water sources and also the ecosystem. This can cause adverse harm to the species that drink the water.
- Plastics in the oceans typically degrade within the span of a year, but not entirely. In the process, toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A and polystyrene can leach into waters from some plastic materials. Pieces of polystyrene and nurdles are the common types of plastic material in the oceans, and combined with plastic bags and food containers make up the highest plastic oceanic waste.
- The plastic litters that are being delivered into the ocean are toxic both to humans, marine, and wildlife in general. The toxins that are components of plastic include Diethylhexyl phthalate, which is a toxic carcinogen, as well as lead, mercury and cadmium. Planktons, fishes and eventually the human race through the food chain, ingest these highly toxic carcinogens and chemicals. Consuming the fish that contains these toxins can cause increase in cancer, immune disorders, and birth defects. The use of plastic is continuing to grow because it is easily accessible and has a low cost of manufacturing. This increase in manufacturing and use of plastic has created an alarming increase in marine plastic waste. The majority of the litter near and in the ocean is made up of plastics. According to Dr. Marcus Eriksen there are 5.25 trillion particles of plastic pollution that weigh as much as 270,000 tons (2016).
- Discarded plastic products such as nets, hooks and so on, can capture and entangle marine animals, thereby rendering them immobile and killing them eventually. Most studies by various environmental groups suggest thousands, if not millions of fishes are killed through this process.
- Another method that adversely affects marine life is the ingestion of plastic products by fishes, turtles and many other marine life forms. Due to the inability of these marine animals to digest plastics, they die eventually of starvation. This problem does not only affect marine animals but has been found to also affect water-dwelling birds. Thousands of seabirds have been found with plastic products in their stomachs. In conclusion, an estimated thousands of wildlife, marine and birds, are killed by starvation due to the accumulation of plastic products in their stomachs. It has been estimated that over 400,000 marine mammals perish annually due to plastic pollution in oceans.
- Disposal of plastics occurs in two ways; either in landfills where they can accumulate or into the ocean where they also accumulate. These two processes are more beneficial to the environment than the incineration of plastic materials which has lots of gas emission risks. The problem that faces landfills is space to store the rising accumulation of plastics. Another concern is that the liners acting as protective layers between the landfill environment can break, thus leaking toxins and contaminating the nearby soil and water.
- Landfill areas contain varieties of plastic materials. In these landfills, there are organisms that speed up the biodegradation of plastics. These microorganisms include bacteria such as flavor-bacteria, pseudomonas, and nylon eating bacteria. They ingest these plastic products, thereby breaking it down to methane which is released into the environment. Methane is one of the major causes of global warming and thus, decomposition of plastics by this method contributes significantly to global warming.
- The accumulation of plastics in the oceans is extensive, forming the great pacific garbage patch of which it is estimated that these garbage patches contain 100 million tons of debris.
- Sea turtles are heavily affected by plastic pollution. Some species are consumers of jellyfish, but often mistake plastic bags for their natural prey. This plastic debris can kill the sea turtle by obstructing the esophagus. So too are whales; large amounts of plastics have been found in the stomachs of beached whales.
- Similar to humans, animals exposed to plasticizers can experience developmental defects. Specifically, sheep have been found to have lower birth weights when prenatally exposed to bisphenol A. Exposure to BPA can shorten the distance between the eyes of a tadpole. It can stall development in frogs and can result in decrease of body length. In different species of fish, exposure can slow egg hatching and result in a decrease in body weight, tail length, and body length.
- Due to the chemical additives used during the production of plastics, it renders it highly dangerous to human beings if ingested. This can happen by eating fishes or marine mammals that have ingested these plastic materials. These chemicals in plastics have potentially adverse effects on normal life conditions often proving to be carcinogenic and disrupting endocrine production. Humans can be exposed to these chemicals through the nose, mouth, or skin. Average levels of daily exposure are above the levels deemed to be safe, but more research needs to be done on the effects of low dose exposure on humans. A lot is unknown about how severe these chemicals could affect the biological functions of a human being. Some of the chemicals used in plastic production can cause dermatitis upon contact with human skin. In many plastics, these adverse chemicals are used in trace amounts, but significant testing is required to check that the chemicals are contained inertly in the plastic product. Due to the commonness of plastic products, most of the human population are constantly exposed to the chemical components of plastics. According to a study, 95% of adults in the United States have had detectable levels of BPA in their urine. Exposure to chemicals such as BPA has been correlated with disruptions in fertility, reproduction, sexual maturation, and other health effects. Specific phthalates have also resulted in similar biological effects.
- Bisphenol A affects gene expression related to the thyroid hormone axis, which affects biological functions such as metabolism and development. BPA can reduce thyroid hormone receptor (TR) activity by increasing TR transcriptional corepressor activity. This then decreases the level of thyroid hormone binding proteins that bind to triiodothyronine. By affecting the thyroid hormone axis, BPA can lead to hypothyroidism (the disease state caused by insufficient production of thyroid hormone by the thyroid gland).
- BPA can disrupt normal, physiological levels of sex hormones. It does this by binding to globulins that normally bind to sex hormones such as androgens and estrogens, leading to disruption of the balance between the two. BPA can also affect the metabolism or the catabolism of sex hormones. It often acts as an antiandrogen or as an estrogen, which can cause disruptions in gonadal development and sperm production.
- Plastic pollution poisons animals, this in turn influences human food supplies adversely.
- A 2017 study shows that 83% of tap water samples taken from around the world contain plastic pollutants. This was the first study that explored the effects of plastic pollution on global drinking water. With a contamination rate of 94%, tap water in the United States was the most polluted, followed by Lebanon and India. The least polluted countries have an average pollutant percentage of 84%. This shows that the rate at which people ingest plastic from drinking water is between 3000 and 4000 micro particles of plastic from tap water per year. It is currently unclear as to the extent ingesting these plastic materials are to the human body and various research groups are beginning to focus on it.
There is no method used in disposing plastics that is an everlasting solution to its promised problems. Disposing plastics in landfills can contaminate the soil and make it unusable. More than that, our landfills are sure to run out at the rate by which we use plastics. It also destroys valuable lands that could have been used for something other than plastic landfills. Underground water can convey the harmful chemicals and substances leached into the soil by these plastic wastes and pollute nearby lands and water sources. Burning plastic is discouraged due to the fact that it releases lots of chemicals, originally inert in some plastics, and pollutes the air and the environment through this process. Disposing it into oceans have lots of consequences, not only on marine life and environment, but also to human health.
Plastic is invariably a bane to the ecosystem and is indeed detrimental to the future of earth, and this crisis must be solved or marine, animal and human life will continue to perish. In the active combat against the basic problem of plastic (its high rate of decomposition), biological biodegradable plastics are being introduced into the market. Plastic recycling is also being promoted. Some communities and businesses have put a ban on some commonly used plastic items, such as bottled water and plastic bags. But we all need to play a role against this universal disaster that is of our own making. By doing our bit and raising awareness on the dangers of continuing plastic pollution, we’re all a step closer to cutting off the choking and poisonous effects of plastics in our environment.
