Micro- and nano-plastics – the real environmental and species ending threat

The excellent news curator site CITIZEN FREE PRESS posted a couple of links about microplastics today to news articles today:

Study shows how tiny plastic particles manage to breach the blood-brain barrier (phys.org)

Recycling plastics might be making things worse (phys.org)

Which prompted me to re-visit one of my first posts:

(100) An Inconvenient Truth - by Peter Halligan (substack.com)

The first link has this:

“Among the biggest environmental problems of our time, micro- and nanoplastic particles (MNPs) can enter the body in various ways, including through food. And now for the first time, research conducted at MedUni Vienna has shown how these minute particles manage to breach the blood-brain barrier and as a consequence penetrate the brain. The newly discovered mechanism provides the basis for further research to protect humans and the environment.”

The second linked article has this:

“By most accounts, plastic recycling efforts have been a resounding failure. Prior research has shown that only 9% of plastic worldwide is recycled—in the U.S., it is only 5%. This is despite millions of people around the world dutifully separating out their plastic bottles; most of them wind up in landfills anyway. And now, it appears that the recycling process itself might be making things worse. In this new effort, the research team received permission to test a plastic recycling plant to see if it was emitting plastic pollution.”

Lots of washing required with shredding and melting steps – lots of micro plastics, not all of which are captured by filters.

I have a keen interest on the cleanliness of our oceans. I hate the thought of ever growing suspended garbage patches in oceans as a visible symptom of the threat to all species on earth, including our own.

Check this out:

Citing evidence from this site (copyright back in 2018) Swimming in Plastic: what’s the harm? (rajapack.co.uk), this site Revealed: The top 15 countries dumping the highest amount of plastic into the ocean - Talented Ladies Club has this data, published in August 2021 which I have re-stated on a per person basis below:

I had thought that Indonesia was the worst ocean dumper, turns out, based on these numbers from a few years ago, that Thailand produces 65% more than Indonesia and was the worst ocean polluter out of those countries dumping the most into the oceans.

You would think that a world health organization might be issuing warnings about locally caught fish, right? And maybe organizing with governments of countries to prevent pollution that gets straight back into the food chain of human consumption?

In total, those top 15 countries dump over 327 million kgs – 327,000 tonnes into the oceans a year.

Okay, let’s circle back to my article “Inconvenient Truth” and the pollution caused by masks and wet wipes over the course of the three years of the C19 pandemic. How big an impact has there been on oceans from all those masks and wet wipes used for no good reason?

I referenced this article in my piece “Inconvenient Truth”:

Wet wipes and disposable surgical masks are becoming new sources of fiber microplastic pollution during global COVID-19 - PMC (nih.gov)

Which said this:

“It has been reported that in 2020, about 52 billion masks have been produced worldwide, of which 1.56 billion entered the oceans through various pathways. Each mask is about 3–4 g in weight, and after conversion, there are about 4680–6240 tons of discarded masks in the ocean.”

1.56 billion masks weighing 3-4g each works out at around 6,000 tonnes a year for three years = 18,000 tonnes.

Probably the same weight in wet wipes – another 6,000 tonnes a year for three years? Another 18,000 tonnes.

Now add in the plastics used over three years in the packaging of 8 billion test kits, 8 billion swabs and 13 billion injections. Probably doubles the amount of the plastic component of the masks and wet wipes? 72,000 tonnes?

Come up with your own numbers, but that would be over 100,000 tonnes of plastics dumped into oceans to preserve human health.

Remember that is what has been dumped into oceans. Just 3%. The other 97% has gone elsewhere – to landfills and rubbish dumps etc. Another 3.3 million tonnes.

Maybe I am overly worried about the on-going, increasing and any one-off dumps like those that delivered all those medical devices around the world.

Mass die offs of species in the sea that are preventable with a little care and attention seems an easy enough step that is best co-ordinated at a global level, using a portion of the funds spent on overseas aid, say 5%  a year out of the overseas aid budgets of countries.

Onwards!

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