3. Microplastics

Ben Addelman and Ziya Tong’s Plastic People covers a range of concerning outcomes resulting from plastic pollution. One of the main concerns is the prevalence of microplastics. Common sources include shedding particles from plastic waste, paint from buildings and boats, and tyre dust from cars and planes.

Millions of metric tons of microplastics leave the land each year, some floating and travelling, some breaking down and going up into the atmosphere, some sinking to the bottom of the sea. These microplastics are being dispersed on a global scale, entering the atmospheric, carbon and water cycles that circulate vital nutrients and resources around the planet. 

Swept up in such significant planetary cycles, microplastics become impossible to adequately dispose of. They end up being consumed at almost every level of the food chain, from the smallest of feeders to apex predators. As each animal consumes microplastics within its prey, the level of plastic compounds, resulting in a significant and alarming presence of plastic in animals.

Microplastics have been found in ocean water around the world. Mussels in the Philippines were found to contain on average one to three pieces of microplastic. Shellfish ingesting these microplastics suffer from significantly reduced growth rates among other likely issues.

The health implications for animals are the same as for humans, with plastics disrupting cell function and affecting hormonal cycles and fertility. As well as causing harm directly, microplastics act as a deadly transport mechanism for getting bad chemicals into organisms (Dr Pete Myers).

Microplastics have become a form of air pollution that doesn’t degrade and that accumulates constantly. Do we want our legacy on this planet to be the destruction of our biosphere?

Read our next blog to find out more about Plastics and Health…