MICROPLASTICS: THE BIG PROBLEM WITH SMALL PARTICLES

The scientific community has verified that microplastic particles are found everywhere in nature and inside living organisms. What would it take to rein in this problem?

- Martin Oliver

Plastics have long been dismissed by their critics as an environmental headache but difficult to completely avoid in the modern world.

Now, new research is uncovering an increasing range of health risks that they pose.

The normal definition of microplastic is plastic fragments or fibres that measure 5mm or less. These are either a material that is already micro-sized when it enters the environment or, far more commonly, the result of the breakdown or shedding of a plastic material. Sometimes they can be added to products, as in the case of plastic microbeads added to cosmetic products.

Microplastics may contain any of more than 16,000 different plastic chemicals, of which at least 4200 (26 per cent) are considered “highly hazardous” to human health and the environment, including PFAS, bisphenols and phthalates. In addition, microplastics have a tendency to absorb and concentrate harmful pollutants in the environment.

This form of human-generated contamination is so pervasive that it is found in environments that would otherwise be considered pristine, such as the peaks of the highest mountains, Antarctic Sea ice, the North Pole and the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the world’s oceans. It has colonised everywhere in the world, to a greater or lesser concentration, and this includes the human body.

The role of the plastics industry

In the period following World War II, plastic took off, aided by a consumer boom, coupled with industry-driven messaging encouraging a wasteful shift towards single-use disposables. At its end of life, most is landfilled, or incinerated via waste-to-energy, a type of power generation that is more carbon-polluting than burning coal. The average global plastic recycling rate remains under 10 per cent.