Severed heads to stunted sperm: Cost of 460 million tons of plastic every year is high
I was born 117 years ago and will exist until long after any human alive today has departed this Earth. It’s almost as if I am immortal. I have transformed society in countless ways, saved many lives, and touched billions more.
So great are my achievements, you might even say I am a personified god in the ancient style, as my devoted human followers spread my presence all over the world. My name? You call me ‘plastic’.
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Hide AdYet, despite my many wonders, I also have a terrifying, sinister side and you would do well to be afraid. Indeed, there are those who fear I have ushered in a new era in the history of Earth, one that will change it, fundamentally and for the worse, that I am not just altering the planet but the make-up of all living things. But I care not for such concerns and the pitiful efforts made by a few unbelievers to get in my way. For I am so enticing that no mere mortal can truly resist me for long.
If plastic could talk, and turned out to be spectacularly pompous, it might sound something like this. But any arrogance would be pretty much be justified given its undeniable achievements.
‘Perfect material’
As the British Plastics Federation makes clear, the list of incredibly useful things it is used to make is long. Almost anything that involves electricity will also involve plastic for the simple reason that it provides an effective barrier between humans and a current that might otherwise kill them.
In medicine, it is used to make syringes, heart valves, artificial limbs and wound dressings. It is also the “perfect material”, says the BPF, for packaging goods, as it is “hygienic, lightweight, flexible and highly durable”.
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Hide AdI discovered this to my cost during a short-lived attempt to live without single-use plastic for a month, a challenge I took up as a journalistic exercise. On day one, I went to get my takeaway lunch from a place that served the food wrapped in tinfoil, in cardboard boxes, and carried in a paper bag.
At my desk, I tipped out the contents and there it was. “Would you like some tomato sauce with that,” I’d been asked while waiting for my order. “Sure, thanks,” I’d said idly, not really paying attention. And – of course it did – the tomato sauce came in a little plastic sachet. I’ve no idea where that sachet is now. All I can tell you is that I put it in a bin in the office where I was working.
Horrific injuries
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, every year more than 460 million tons of plastic is produced and an estimated 20 million tons end up in the environment. And what happens after that is the scary bit.
What I’m about to describe is absolutely horrifying, but it is a reality that I think everyone, or at least everyone who uses plastic, needs to confront. And it is just one example, from one part of the world, of the damage done by plastic.
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Hide AdSince 2013, Ocean Conservation Namibia has rescued more than 3,500 seals from entanglement in abandoned fishing lines and other plastic waste, including clothing and even, in at least one case, a hat with a hole in the top. In videos posted regularly on social media, the group can be seen charging towards large groups of seals with specially designed nets to catch entangled animals and cut them free.
Saying they are ‘entangled’ really does not describe their plight. In many cases, a loop of plastic line around the seal’s neck has started to cut into their flesh as the animal has grown, leaving an open, red wound, which can be so deep that the seal’s head is almost severed. Sometimes, the skin has started to grow over the wound, while the line continues to cut into the flesh beneath, making it hard to find. Obviously not all the seals are rescued, not all survive.
The agony, the sheer torture, is hard to imagine. And the slow beheading of marine mammals is far from plastic’s only ‘crime’.
The plastic inside us
According to a scientific paper published in the journal Toxicology in 2022, mice exposed to microplastics had a reduced pregnancy rate with damage to both their ovaries and testes. There was a decrease in the size of the females’ ovaries, while the number of viable sperm was “significantly reduced” and the “rate of sperm deformity increased”.
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Hide AdIt’s not clear what the effect is on humans. However, in three separate, small-scale studies of men’s semen, two in China and one in Italy, researchers found microplastics in half, 60 per cent and all of the samples. Meanwhile, in other news, concern about falling male fertility has been rising...
How is plastic getting inside us? One route is through food. Microplastic particles have been filmed moving along inside the blood vessels of sea animals. And a Portsmouth University study found that a “traditional roast dinner” can contain an unexpected portion of 230,000 pieces of microplastic. “Eating one roast dinner everyday – or a similar meal everyday – would equate to eating two plastic bags each year,” the researchers added. Microplastics are also sometimes added to toothpastes and facial scrubs. And even if you avoid these sources, they are also in the air we breathe. Some particles can get into our lungs, while particularly tiny ones can even breach the walls of human cells.
None of this sounds good to me, but I’m still surrounded by plastic and much of the food I eat comes packaged in it. Plastic is just so convenient. So I’m not arguing for a ban, simply that we need to work much harder to reduce the myriad costs to the natural world, of which we are part. And that starts by understanding what they really are, and not treating plastic either as a devil or an untouchable god.
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