Environment
Plastic in Your Blood: How Plastic Is Destroying the Living World
In 2022, scientists found tiny plastic pieces in the blood of 17 of 22 healthy people. Follow one plastic bag from a Phnom Penh market to the Mekong, the sea, turtles, whales and fish, and back to our own plates and bodies, then see what countries, towns and families are already doing to cut the loop.
Key takeaways
- A 2022 Dutch study found plastic particles in the blood of 17 of 22 healthy adults; plastic has also been found in human lungs, placentas and artery plaque.
- The world made about 2 million tonnes of plastic a year in 1950 and about 460 million tonnes in 2019; only about 9% of plastic waste is recycled and about 22% leaks into nature.
- Plastic does not rot away: sunlight, waves and sand break it into ever smaller pieces (microplastics, under 5 mm) that rivers like the Mekong carry to the sea.
- About 52% of sea turtles are estimated to have eaten rubbish, most of it plastic, and a young whale found dead in the Philippines in 2019 had about 40 kg of plastic in its stomach.
- Scientists do not yet know exactly what plastic inside us does to our health, but plastic is a human choice: bag bans, bag fees, reuse and a few small family habits already cut it.
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Sources
Original from: Cypher original
OECD Global Plastics Outlook 2022 (production, recycling, leakage)
Geyer, Jambeck & Law 2017, Science Advances: all plastics ever made
Meijer et al. 2021, Science Advances: rivers carrying plastic to the sea
Haberstroh et al. 2021: plastic flow at Chaktomuk, Phnom Penh (2019 rainy season)
Cambodia Ministry of Environment estimates on Phnom Penh plastic bags and waste
Wilcox et al. 2015, PNAS: plastic in seabirds
Lamb et al. 2018, Science: plastic and coral disease in the Asia-Pacific
Lebreton et al. 2018, Scientific Reports: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Chiba et al. 2018, Marine Policy: plastic bag at 10,898 m in the Mariana Trench
Ragusa et al. 2021, Environment International: microplastics in human placenta
Marfella et al. 2024, NEJM: micro- and nanoplastics in carotid artery plaque
Jenner et al. 2022: microplastics in human lung tissue
UNEP 2023, Turning off the Tap; UNEP report on chemicals in plastics
WHO 2022: dietary and inhalation exposure to nano- and microplastic particles
Photo: Marine organisms entangled in a ghost net within the Maldives, Mstelfox (Olive Ridley Project), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: High Angle View Of Kigali City Street, Emmanuel Kwizera, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Launch of the Environment Week 2017, Umuganda at Nyandungu Wetland, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
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