Last week, I looked at the scale of the plastics industry and its environmental impact.
This week, I examine its direct impact on human health, the harmful attitude of the industry and the hopes for national and global action.
A team led by Prof. Martin Wagner of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology recently reported that of 16,000 chemicals associated with plastic, at least 4,200 “are of concern because of their high hazards to human health and the environment.”
The health impacts were summarized in a commentary last month in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Philip Landrigan, a distinguished American pediatrician who chaired the 2017 Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health.
He noted: “Data from the National Biomonitoring Surveys of the [U.S.] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that plastic additive chemicals are present in the bodies of nearly all Americans.”
Depending on the chemical additive, their toxic effects may include causing cancer, damage to the nervous system, disruption of the endocrine (hormone) system and of lipid metabolism, which in turn can “increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and stroke.”
Their potential to disrupt hormones — and of course, this is not just in humans but in many other species — is of particular concern.
A May 2023 UN Environment Programme report noted that women and children are particularly susceptible and that these chemicals “can have severe or long-lasting adverse effects,” including neuro-developmental problems in children and fertility problems in both women and men.
Moreover, their impacts can cross the generations. In a release from the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment on Earth Day, Dr. Lyndia Dernis, an anesthesiologist in Québec, wrote: “when I administer an intravenous to a pregnant woman, I have to live with the knowledge that I may be exposing three generations to the endocrine disrupting phthalates in that plastic IV: the pregnant mom, her future baby girl, and the babies of that baby to be. Yet the phthalates that continue to be used in Canada have been banned in France since 2012.”
Just as worrying as the widespread presence of these chemicals in our bodies is that plastic nano-particles are everywhere, throughout the food chain.
Two recent articles in the medical literature have reported them in every placenta examined and in arteries, including coronary arteries. As one researcher stated in The Guardian, “If we are seeing effects on placentas, then all mammalian life on this planet could be impacted. That’s not good.”
But as we have seen time and again, just like other industries — such as the tobacco industry — that are focused on their own commercial interests, the plastics industry fights regulations intended to limit harm to health and the environment.
In November 2023, for example, a case brought by an industry coalition and several chemical companies that manufacture plastics overturned the federal government’s attempt to ban single-use plastics such as plastic bags, cutlery, take-out containers and straws.
In the U.S. meanwhile, The Guardian reported last month that after a four-year legal fight, “A federal appeals court in the U.S. has killed a ban on plastic containers contaminated with highly toxic Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS), “forever chemicals” found to leach at alarming levels into food, cosmetics, household cleaners, pesticides and other products across the economy.”
In addition, a recent report from the Center for Climate Integrity, a U.S. non-profit that is committed to holding oil and gas corporations accountable for the massive costs of climate change, finds that plastics recycling is largely a fraud.
“Petrochemical companies,” the report bluntly states, “have engaged in fraudulent marketing and public education campaigns designed to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling as a solution to plastic waste.”
Small wonder, then, that the UN Environment Programme suggests that among the actions governments should take are to “eliminate the plastic products we do not need, through bans for example,” as well as recommending other steps to reduce plastics and plastic waste through re-use and recycling.
We all need to support the position of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and “call on the federal government to limit plastics production, eliminate toxic additives, and protect the health of those most at risk — and advocate for this in a strong global treaty.”
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
