Plastic Pollution is a More Significant Threat to Human Life than Global Warming
By Joel D. Joseph, CEO, www.waragainstplastic.com
Global warming is causing rising ocean levels, elevated temperatures and more deadly hurricanes, but it is not an existential threat to mankind. We can relocate people where rising sea levels make islands and coastal areas unlivable. We can change crops to adapt to warmer climates. But we cannot easily remove all plastic from oceans, lakes, streams, fish and the human body.
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, an expert on global warming, said: Although climate change will have serious consequencesparticularly for people in the poorest countriesit will not lead to humanitys demise. People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future. Although climate change will hurt poor people more than anyone else, for the vast majority of them it will not be the only or even the biggest threat to their lives and welfare, Gates wrote.
New research, published in the journal
Environmental Science and Technology,took the data from 26 previous studies that measure the amounts of microplastic particles in fish, shellfish, sugar, salt, beer and water, as well as in the air in cities. The scientists then used U.S. government dietary guidelines to calculate how many particles people would eat in a year. Adults eat about 50,000 microplastic particles a year and children about 40,000, they estimated.
The Guardian, June 5, 2019.
There are at least four warning signs that plastics are killing the human race. These are four canaries in the coal mine. The four warning signs about the harm that plastic is causing are the connection between bees dying out, human sperm counts plummeting, plastic particles in the brain and in the heart and arteries.
Both bees and sperm appear to be very sensitive to plastic pollution and other environmental hazards like pesticides.
Bees are Threatened with Extinction Bees lie at the heart of our survival. They pollinate one in three bites of food we eat and are essential to the health and prosperity of countless ecosystems.
Bees, however, are in peril. Einstein said that if bees go extinct humans have four years to live. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, more than half of North Americas 4,000 native bee species are in decline, with one in four species at risk of extinction.
As honeybees make their way through the world, they are ideally suited to pick up bits and pieces of plastic along the way. Bees are covered with hairs that have evolved to hold tiny particles that the bee collects intentionally or simply encounters in its daily travels. These hairs become electrostatically charged in flight, which helps attract the small plastic particles. Pollen is the most obvious substance that gets caught up in these hairs, but so do plant debris, wax, and even bits of other bees.
Now, another material has been added to that list: plastics. Specifically, 13 different synthetic polymers, according to a study of honeybees and microplastics in Denmark. The study was published in 2022 in
Science of the Total Environment. This research, published in the journal
Apidologie, documents the first time bees have been seen making nests only out of plastic. For years scientists have known bees were incorporating plastic into their building materials.
Smithsonian Magazine, June 7, 2019.
Sperm Counts are Declining In a recent study, scientists at Nottingham University found that two chemicals common in home environments damage the quality of sperm in both men and dogs.
The Guardian, May 24, 2019.
The culprits implicated are diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), used to make new plastics more pliable, and polychlorinated biphenyl 153 (PCB153), found in older plastics and electrical equipment.
The Nottingham study is just one in a mounting pile of research findings indicating that the quality and quantity of mens sperm is declining significantly. Research suggests that sperm counts have dropped by half in the last 50 years and that a higher percentage of sperm are poor swimmersslow, ungainly or beset by genetic flaws and thus unlikely to fertilize eggs.
Plastic in Our Brains The human brain may contain up to a spoons worth of tiny plastic shardsnot a spoonful, but the same weight (about seven grams) as a plastic spoon, according to new findings published in the journal
Nature Medicine. February 3, 2025.
Researchers detected these almost unbelievable levels of microplastics and nanoplastics in the brains of human cadavers, says study co-author Andrew West, a neuroscientist at Duke University, In fact, I didnt believe it until I saw all the data. Based on their analysis, the amount of microplastics in the human brain appears to be increasing over time: Concentrations rose by roughly 50 percent between 2016 and 2024.
The researchers also found much higher levels of microplastics in brain tissue than in liver and kidney tissue. And microplastic concentrations were also higher in the brains of deceased patients who had been diagnosed with dementia compared to the brains of deceased individuals without dementia.
Plastic in Our Arteries A new study found that people with microplastics in the plaque clogging their neck arteries were far more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than people with plastic-free plaque. When researchers tested the plaque removed from the neck arteries of 257 people, they found tiny particles of plasticmostly polyethylene but also polyvinyl chloridein 58% of the people. After nearly three years, the rate of heart attack, stroke and death was 4.5 times higher in people with microplastics in their plaque than those without.
New England Journal of Medicine, March 7, 2024.
Reducing Plastic Pollution is Easier that Stopping Global Warming
Plastic pollution is a relatively new phenomenon. Most plastics were introduced after World War II. It wasnt that long ago that we used glass bottles and aluminum cans instead of plastic. We can easily shift away from plastics and clean up existing plastic particles by:
1. Requiring use of biodegradable plastics that are readily available;
2. Replacing plastic bottles with aluminum, waxed paper and glass containers;
3. Recycling more plastic waste;
4. Using plastic-eating bacteria to get rid of plastic in oceans and fresh water. The first plastic-eating bacteria, Ideonella sakaiensis, was discovered in a recycling plant in Japan.
5. Using mechanical skimming devices including Ocean Cleanups System 03 and Seabins litter capture devices on rivers.
On the other hand, global warming has been taking place for a much longer period of time, and has more sources that need to be controlled. Significant warming trends were noted during the late 19th century. The industrial revolution, around 1750, marked the increase in carbon dioxide emissions. According to CO2levels.org, CO2 levels were 277 in 175, 284 in 1850, 296 in 1900, 269 in 2000 and 422 in 2004.
Reducing global warming is much more difficult than controlling plastic pollution. Global warming is caused by automobile, truck, train and power plant emissions, farming emissions (most notably cows) and the production and use of petrochemicals.
However, we can adjust to global warming by changing crops and relocating people from low-lying areas, while we cannot adjust to plastic in our brains, lungs and other organs.
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