Plastic is not only bad for the environment, but it’s also bad for human health. Antimicrobial, flame retardants, and other chemicals used to produce plastics can be harmful.
We’ve known for years that plastic’s detrimental consequences may be found all over our natural world. Birds and marine turtles have been spotted choking and entangling themselves to death in plastic garbage. Microplastics are now hidden in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat; humans are estimated to consume a credit card’s worth of plastic per week.
We also know that plastic is damaging not only as physical trash but also as a source of toxic compounds. A recent report compiled a summary of international research on endocrine-disrupting chemicals used to make plastic, which included 144 chemicals/chemical groups known to be harmful to human health and intended to give plastics antimicrobial properties, colourants, flame retardants, solvents, UV-stabilizers, and plasticizers.
Endocrine or hormone disruption, which is a type of health effect seen in plastics and the chemicals they can leach. Hormones are essential for the development and growth of our reproductive systems and play a critical function in many of our body systems. As a result, youngsters are more vulnerable to the health dangers posed by toxic compounds present in plastic.
Even after clean-up of the plastic, the poisons present in it might stay in our environment. Because of the chemicals left behind after scientists introduced and then withdrew plastic from an aquatic habitat, sea urchins acquired aberrant bones and neurological systems, according to recent research. To make matters worse, plastics have the unusual capacity to bind together substances that would otherwise be more diluted in the environment, making them carriers of a variety of highly concentrated poisons.
Single-use plastic food packaging and containers contain hazardous chemicals that come into direct touch with the food we eat and may introduce these chemicals into our bodies.
BPA is a well-known example, thanks to “BPA-free” marketing and the European Union’s designation of BPA as a substance of serious concern. BPA can have an impact on brain development and behaviour. BPA has also been linked to hormone disruption, male and female reproductive issues, and other negative health effects.
There is a way out. Many of the most commonly used single-use plastics contain hazardous compounds that are harmful to human health. We could prevent a lot of these toxins from seeping into the environment by eliminating unneeded single-use items like plastic film used in plastic bags and polystyrene used in foam packing.
Since the emergence of COVID-19, a vast amount of single-use plastic garbage has been generated globally, according to our calculations. The current global estimate of single-use PPE (facemasks) generated daily is 1.6 million tonnes/day, meaning that about 3.4 billion single-use facemasks or face shields are discarded daily owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to regional estimates, Asia, with the world’s largest population, will produce the most discarded facemasks per day (1.8 billion), followed by Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania, with 445, 411, 380, 244, and 22 million facemasks per day, respectively.
There is an increasing risk of single-use plastic and personal protective equipment (PPE) being linked to the COVID-19 epidemic. This has the potential to exacerbate existing plastic pollution issues, posing a serious threat to our collective survival as well as the survival of marine organisms. Not only is there a potential environmental risk from poorly discarded non-biodegradable PPE made of plastics, but there are also human health hazards from eating seafood, which is a popular source of nutrition for many people across the world. Macro-, Meso-, and microplastics in the environment and marine ecosystems, in particular, could serve as potential infection vectors. Entanglement and purposeful, unintentional, or indirect consumption of latex gloves by marine species such as fish, turtles, beach seagulls, sea turtles, whales, and other marine mammals could result in severe damage and death.
To limit our risk of exposure to these hazardous chemicals while also maintaining a cleaner environment, we must first lobby our politicians to prohibit the use of single-use plastics and replace them with non-toxic, reusable alternatives. Nothing we use for a few minutes should remain in our environments for generations, posing a health risk. We as a guest of our Earth should avoid single-use plastics and can take safeguards in the meantime to avoid harmful chemical exposure through plastics.