Plastics, human health and environmental impacts: The road ahead.
•Because plastics are found throughout the globe, there are effectively no populations that haven’t been exposed to them. “Studies have demonstrated the presence of steady-state concentration of plastics’ components in the human body, thereby reflecting the ongoing balance of constant exposure, metabolism and excretion of these compounds. This situation implies that in today’s plastics-enabled society, there are no control groups to be found to analyze the effects on human health from low-level, environmental exposures to plastic constituents. Everybody is being exposed to some degree at any given time from gestation through death.”
Biodegradable plastics hold promise, but are not currently a perfect solution:
•Biodegradable plastics are more expensive to produce, and many use plant resources such as corn or molasses, thus creating competition for food supply.
•Commercial facilities test biodegradable plastics at 58 degrees C and 60% relative humidity, whereas at-home composting mechanisms may not meet these conditions and may therefore produce incomplete biodegradation.
•Pilot “curbside composting” programs in Boulder, Colo., increased waste diversion from landfills from 40% and 69%, indicating that consumers are willing to use better disposal methods if available.
•Strategies are possible to balance the need for durable plastics in some applications, and biodegradable compounds in others: “Plastics of low volume for medical applications may rely more on fossil fuel and be designed for durability, whereas high-volume uses for consumer products will have to be sourced from renewable material stocks and be programmed for rapid environmental decay (i.e., biodegradability). This strategy could prevent irreparable environmental damage from disposable plastic products, while maintaining and maximizing the benefits of plastics in specialized cases, like medicine and public health.”
The authors state that a critical examination of how we should be using plastics is necessary, suggesting that we use them to yield truly important benefits but turn to alternatives and reusable products where possible: “Although there have been great benefits from using plastics, especially in the health care sector, there needs to be a second revolution of plastics in which life-cycle considerations are integrated with production and consumption decisions to handle the voluminous present-day flow of plastics, most of which being destined for disposal after single use.”
Sources: journalistsresource.org | Rachael Stephens and Leighton Walter Kille