PLASTIC POLLUTION EXPLAINED
Much of the planet is swimming in discarded plastic, which is harming animal and possibly human health. Can it be cleaned up?
By Laura Parker September 23, 2024 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues, as rapidly increasing production of disposable plastic products overwhelms the world’s ability to deal with them. Plastic pollution is most visible in developing Asian and African nations, where garbage collection systems are often inefficient or nonexistent. But the developed world, especially in countries with low recycling rates, also has trouble properly collecting discarded plastics. Plastic trash has become so ubiquitous it has prompted efforts to write a global treaty negotiated by the United Nations.
Why was plastic invented?
Plastics made from fossil fuels are just over a century old. Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland created the first fully synthetic plastic in 1907. Production and development of thousands of new plastic products accelerated after World War II, so transforming the modern age that life without plastics would be unrecognizable today. In plastic, inventors found a light, durable material that can be used in everything from transportation to medicine.
Plastics revolutionized medicine with life-saving devices, made space travel possible, lightened cars and jets—saving fuel and pollution—and saved lives with helmets, incubators, and equipment for clean drinking water.
The conveniences plastics offer, however, led to a throw-away culture that reveals the material’s dark side: today, single-use plastics account for 40 percent of the plastic produced every year. Many of these products, such as plastic bags and food wrappers, have a lifespan of mere minutes to hours, yet they may persist in the environment for hundreds of years.
That’s why some governments have taken steps to limit or ban the use of plastic bags. Most recently, California passed legislation to ban all plastic bags by 2026.
Plastics by the numbers
Some key facts:
Half of all plastics ever manufactured have been made in the last 20 years.
Production increased exponentially, from 2.3 million tons in 1950 to 448 million tons by 2015. Production is expected to double by 2050.
Every year, about eight million tons of plastic waste escapes into the oceans from coastal nations. That’s the equivalent of setting five garbage bags full of trash on every foot of coastline around the world.
Plastics often contain additives making them stronger, more flexible, and durable. But many of these additives can extend the life of products if they become litter, with some estimates ranging to at least 400 years to break down.
HOW PLASTICS MOVE AROUND THE WORLD
Most of the plastic trash in the oceans, Earth’s last sink, flows from land. Trash is also carried to sea by major rivers, which act as conveyor belts, picking up more and more trash as they move downstream. Once at sea, much of the plastic trash remains in coastal waters. But once caught up in ocean currents, it can be transported around the world.
On Henderson Island, an uninhabited atoll in the Pitcairn Group isolated halfway between Chile and New Zealand, scientists found plastic items from Russia, the United States, Europe, South America, Japan, and China. They were carried to the South Pacific by the South Pacific gyre, a circular ocean current.
MICROPLASTICS
Once at sea, sunlight, wind, and wave action break down plastic waste into small particles, often less than one-fifth of an inch across. These so-called microplastics are spread throughout the water column and have been found in every corner of the globe, from Mount Everest, the highest peak, to the Mariana Trench, the deepest trough.
Microplastics are breaking down further into smaller and smaller pieces. Plastic microfibers, meanwhile, have been found in municipal drinking water systems and drifting through the air.
It’s no surprise then that scientists have found microplastics in people. The tiny particles are in our blood, lungs, and even in feces. Exactly how much microplastics might be harming human health is a question scientists are urgently trying to answer.
Learn more about the microplastics in our bodies and how much do they harm us.
HARM TO WILDLIFE
Millions of animals are killed by plastics every year, from birds to fish to other marine organisms. Nearly 2,100 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by plastics. Nearly every species of seabird eats plastics.
Most of the deaths to animals are caused by entanglement or starvation. Seals, whales, turtles, and other animals are strangled by abandoned fishing gear or discarded six-pack rings. Microplastics have been found in more than 100 aquatic species, including fish, shrimp, and mussels destined for our dinner plates. In many cases, these tiny bits pass through the digestive system and are expelled without consequence. But plastics have also been found to have blocked digestive tracts or pierced organs, causing death. Stomachs so packed with plastics reduce the urge to eat, causing starvation.
Plastics have been consumed by land-based animals, including elephants, hyenas, zebras, tigers, camels, cattle, and other large mammals, in some cases causing death.
Tests have also confirmed liver and cell damage and disruptions to reproductive systems, prompting some species, such as oysters, to produce fewer eggs. New research shows that larval fish are eating nanofibers in the first days of life, raising new questions about the effects of plastics on fish populations.
STOPPING PLASTIC POLLUTION
Once in the ocean, it is difficult—if not impossible—to retrieve plastic waste. Mechanical systems, such as Mr. Trash Wheel, a litter interceptor in Maryland’s Baltimore Harbor, can be effective at picking up large pieces of plastic, such as foam cups and food containers, from inland waters. But once plastics break down into microplastics and drift throughout the water column in the open ocean, they are virtually impossible to recover.
The solution is to prevent plastic waste from entering rivers and seas in the first place, many scientists and conservationists say. This could be accomplished with improved waste management systems and recycling, better product design that takes into account the short life of disposable packaging, and a reduction in manufacturing of unnecessary single-use plastics.
A first of Its kind map reveals the extent of ocean plastic. There’s less than expected on the surface and scientists are trying to find where in the ocean it’s gone. Something doesn’t quite add up. Of the nearly 300 million tonnes of plastic now produced annually by the world’s 192 coastal countries, an estimated 8.8 million tonnes ends up in the world’s oceans. Most comes from Asian countries where rivers are disposal systems. About one billion microplastic pieces reach the Pacific each day from southern California cities. But 99% is missing disappearing into the marine ecology.
There are millions of pieces of plastic debris floating in five large subtropical gyres in the world’s oceans. But plastic production has quadrupled since the 1980s, and wind, waves, and sun break all that plastic into tiny bits the size of rice grains. So there should have been a lot more plastic floating on the surface than the scientists found. Observations show that large loads of plastic fragments, with sizes from microns to some millimeters, are unaccounted for in the surface loads. It is not known what this plastic is doing. The plastic is somewhere—in the ocean life, in the depths, or broken down into fine particles undetectable by nets.
What effect those plastic fragments will have on the deep ocean—the largest and least explored ecosystem on Earth—is anyone’s guess. The accumulation of plastic in the deep ocean could be modifying this enigmatic ecosystem before we can really know it.
But where exactly is the unaccounted-for plastic? In what amounts? And how did it get there?
No beach or body of water on earth is free of discarded plastic. Water from the British Columbia coast was found to contain 9,180 pieces of plastic per cubic meter in some locations – each piece about the size of a coffee ground. Concentrations were usually higher closer to urban centers. Microplastics are ingested by small copepods, the first step in the migration of these wastes up the food chain to us.
PLASTIC, PLASTIC EVERYWHERE
One reason so many questions remain unanswered is that the science of marine debris is so young. Plastic was invented in the mid-1800s and has been mass-produced since the end of World War II. In contrast, ocean garbage has been studied for slightly more than a decade. People always thought that the solution to pollution was dilution, meaning that we could turn our head, and once it is washed away, it was out of sight and out of mind.
The North Pacific Garbage Patch, a loose collection of drifting debris that accumulates in the northern Pacific, first drew notice when it was discovered in 1997 by adventurer Charles Moore as he sailed back to California after competing in a yachting competition. A turning point came in 2004, when Richard Thompson, a British marine biologist at Plymouth University, concluded that most marine debris was plastic.
Research on marine debris is also complicated by the need to include a multidiscipline group of experts, ranging from oceanographers to solid-waste-management engineers. We are at the very early stages of understanding the accounting. If we think ten or a hundred times more plastic is entering the ocean than we can account for, then where is it? We still haven’t answered that question. And if we don’t know where it is or how it is impacting organisms, we can’t tell the person on the street how big the problem is.
New Maps Document Floating Plastic Trash
Tens of thousands of tons of plastic garbage float on the surface waters in the world’s oceans, mapped giant accumulation zones of trash in all five subtropical ocean gyres. Ocean currents act as “conveyor belts,” researchers say, carrying debris into massive convergence zones that are estimated to contain millions of plastic items per square kilometer in their inner cores.
One Answer
To assess the level of plastic pollution, a two-ship expedition spent nine months circumnavigating the world. They also used data gathered by four other ships that had traveled to the polar regions, the South Pacific, and the North Atlantic to complete the map.
3,070 water samples were analyzed. One of the most striking observations was the conspicuous presence of plastic in the surface samples, even thousands of kilometers from the continents. The plastic garbage patch in the South Atlantic Gyre was one of the most striking.
Some of the tiniest bits of plastic are being consumed by small fish, which live in the murky mesopelagic zone, 600 feet to 3,300 feet (180 to 1,000 meters) below the surface. Little is known about these mesopelagic fish other than that they’re abundant. They hide in the darkness of the ocean to avoid predators and swim to the surface at night to feed. One of the most common mesopelagic fish is the lantern fish, which lives in the central ocean gyres and is the main link in the tropical zone between plankton and marine vertebrates. Because lantern fish serve as a primary food source for commercially harvested fish, including tuna and swordfish, any plastic they eat ends up in the food chain.
There are enough signs to suggest that plankton-eaters and small fishes are important conduits for plastic pollution and associated contaminants. If this assumption is confirmed, the impacts of man-sustained plastic pollution could extend over the ocean predators on a large scale.
WHERE ARE MICROPLASTICS IN YOUR HOME?
Your home’s air, water, and food are full of tiny, microscopic plastic particles. Here’s where you can find the most common sources—and eliminate them.
Microplastics touch every facet of our lives. Smaller than a grain of salt, we interact with them more than we might realize.
Humans inhale about 22,000,000 micro and nanoplastics annually, and that’s because they’re in our food, water, and air.
As a result, microplastic has been detected in our blood and lungs. We’re only just beginning to understand the effect of microplastics on human health—but research suggests we should be concerned.
These tiny plastic particles may be inescapable, but with simple swaps and fixes, you can reduce the amount of microplastic you encounter in your own home.
Where microplastics are hidden in your kitchen
Imagine you’re cooking potatoes for breakfast. First, you’d remove the spuds from their plastic bag. Simply opening a plastic container releases microplastics, according to a 2020 paper published in Scientific Reports.
Then, you might chop the potatoes on a cutting board. In June, researchers found that slicing food on plastic and cutting boards produces tens of millions of microparticles each year. When those particles are cut on plastic boards, microplastic ensues.
We should switch to wooden cutting boards. If you clean the wooden cutting board and disinfect it properly, it can go a long way.
After chopping those potatoes, you’d probably cook them. But overheating and heavy use of nonstick, Teflon-coated pans can add 2.3 million micro and nanoplastics to your food. Researchers estimate we unwittingly consume a credit card’s weight in plastic each week.
So how do you reduce the plastic in your food?
Carry your own reusable bags to avoid buying food that comes in excessive plastic packaging. When heating food, use stainless steel or cast iron instead of nonstick pans.
Another way to limit your exposure is to filter your tap water—a 2019 analysis revealed that plastic fibers are in nearly 95 percent of samples of U.S. tap water.
(Want to replace the plastic products in your kitchen? These products can help.)
And consider eco-friendly options during cleanup, since sponges, microfiber dishcloths, and kitchen brushes are major offenders in shedding microplastics.
Cosmetic products are filled with plastic
The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 banned rinse-off cosmetics with plastic microbeads but didn’t force companies to exclude plastics entirely. Ninety percent of all cosmetic products contain microplastic, added for viscosity, color, and sparkle. When these products are rinsed off in the shower, about 100,000 plastic particles flood the sewage system, evading wastewater plant filters and polluting waterways. Rinse-off products are not the only source of plastic in the bathroom.
The deodorant industry is responsible for over 15 million pounds of plastic waste annually. Face and baby wipes that are partially made with plastic can take upwards of a century to degrade, and more than two billion disposable razors reach landfills each year.
(Study links microplastic particles to heart disease. Learn more.)
You can reduce your plastic consumption by simply opting for reusable alternatives or buying products in low-waste packaging, like shampoo bars, body wash refills, or plastic-free natural deodorants. Use washable cotton pads instead of single-use cotton balls, a safety razor instead of disposable ones, and a bamboo toothbrush. You can even try making your own toothpaste.
Within products themselves, the Plastic Soup Foundation’s Beat the Microbead app can scan products for microplastics.
Laundry room—a source of plastic fibers
Many articles of clothing are laden with plastic microfibers, which washers and dryers can break apart after repeated cleanings. About 2.2 million tons of microfibers enter oceans each year.
Recommend sorting synthetic materials like polyester, nylon, and acrylic from natural textiles like cotton, flax, and hemp. It’s best to … wash them in separate loads to reduce microfiber shedding. Laundry powder can be abrasive, so when washing synthetic materials, we usually recommend using an unscented liquid detergent.
When laundering clothes, wash full loads with cold water on shorter cycles. Delicate settings should be avoided because they use more water than other settings. Between washes, we recommend airing clothes out, steaming with a garment steamer, or spraying DIY linen spray.
You can also add devices like plastic-catching laundry bags and exterior filters to reduce microfiber shedding. Cora Ball, the first microfiber-catching laundry ball, was co-invented by National Geographic explorer Rachael Zoe Miller to help protect our oceans from this kind of debris.
(Learn more about how to make your laundry routine more environmentally friendly.)
When upgrading, consider purchasing a front-loading washing machine, which is more efficient than a top-loading one. And finally, you can simply wash your clothing less often and hang them to dry.
A plastic-free future?
Ultimately, plastic manufacturers and the companies that sell their products are responsible for the high volume of plastic waste in our environments, and significantly reducing that plastic—and the microplastics that come with it—will require bold legislation like global treaties and state laws.
But individual consumers can still make a difference. It’s high time we need to be accountable for the plastic that we think we are not responsible for.
