Microplastic pollution in our oceans and lakes is a problem. Scientists are testing solutions — from more biodegradable recipes to nanotechnology.
Look around you. How many plastic items do you see? If you are like most people, there are probably a lot.
Research shows that people recycle only nine percent of plastic wastes. The rest — water bottles, pens, shopping bags — can end up in our water, air and soil. Exposed to light and waves, plastic breaks down into teeny-tiny bits. Known as microplastics, they have become a growing concern. That’s partly because when they end up in the environment, they also can end up in animals, our food and our drinking water.
The most recent estimate suggests that Americans alone eat or drink some 70,000 of these polluting microplastic bits each year.
Discarded plastic is not the only source of them. Some bits are made on purpose, for use in skin-care products and toothpaste. They’re used to scrub away dead skin and cavity-causing material on teeth. When we shower or rinse our mouths, those microplastics go down the drain. From there, they end up in our waterways.
Researchers have even shown that washing clothes made of fleece and other types of plastic sheds bits of lint. Those fibers also go down the drains and into the water.
Scientists began reporting microplastics in the ocean as far back as the 1970s. Since then, several hundred studies have shown that microplastics taint the environment. This includes the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers.
But research is underway to slow the growth of this pollution — and perhaps clean up some of what’s already out there.
The problem with plastics
Our drinking water comes from lakes, rivers and groundwater aquifers. Any of these may be tainted with microplastics. Our bodies will pee out plastics we’ve ingested, but no one knows how long it takes for them to move through the body, says Sam Athey. She studies sources of microplastics at the University of Toronto in Canada. The longer microplastics stay in our bodies, she says, the greater our exposure to them.
Researchers don’t yet know the risks, says Athey. But she finds reasons to be cautious. One is that plastic is made from oil and includes many different petroleum-based ingredients. Scientists don’t yet know how many of these might be toxic.
Ingredients in some plastics, such as polyvinyl chloride, can cause cancer. And phthalates (THAAL-aytes) — used to soften some types of plastics — can mimic the activity of hormones. These false hormones can cause unexpected changes in how cells grow and develop. Such changes may lead to disease.
Plastic also can soak up pollution like a sponge. The pesticide DDT and PCBs (a type of insulating fluid) are two types of toxic pollution found in plastics floating in the ocean.
Plastic bits also have been turning up in fish, birds, corals and other aquatic animals. That’s a problem because plastic does not provide the energy and nutrients these creatures need to grow and thrive.
Help for a world drowning in microplastics
