If there is a material that defines our time, that is the plastic: it is in everything and everywhere. They have been the protagonists of great medical and technological advances, but they are also leaving one in the health of humanity. An international scientific review, published this Sunday in the magazine The Lancethe has compiled all the damages – known – that causes exposure to plastics and has launched an important warning: there are already enough evidence that living surrounded by these polymers represents risks “” for humans at all stages of life.
Scientists send this alert signal while warning that this crisis of plastic pollution in which the world is immersed. Therefore, it accompanies its analysis the announcement of the implementation of a to monitor progress towards the reduction of exposure to plastic and mitigating its damage to human health and the planet. Now, the company will not be easy, they presume. Above all, because there are three factors that already play against: world plastic production is accelerating, recycling is inappropriate – 10%is processed; 90% burns, discarded in landfills or accumulates in the environment – and, unlike other materials, plastic is not easily biodegraded (fragmented in and persists for decades).
Everything is known about the impact of plastics on health. But what is known are not good news. “Now we know that they cause diseases, disabilities and premature death at all stages of their life cycle: from gas extraction and oil, main raw materials of plastics, until their production, their use and their subsequent elimination in the environment as plastic waste,” synthesizes Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Observatory on planetary health and author of the article. The future scenario is also not very flattering, “these damages are aggravated as the world production of plastic continues to increase: it has multiplied by 250 since 1950 and it is expected to be doubled again by 2040 and triple by 2060 if current trends are not controlled”.
The damage is at several levels and in different contexts. The clearest and direct case is that of people who work in plastic production, as they are exposed to numerous toxic chemicals that can cause serious diseases, such as cancer and neurological ailments, says Landrigan. The Mindero-Mónaco Commission, which examined the impact on the health of plastics, calculated that in 2015 there were around 32,000 premature deaths worldwide among this group.
But beyond the workplace, plastic production also pollutes air, water and soil. And disperse in tiny particles outside the factories. It has already been described, in fact, an increase in diseases and premature deaths in communities close to oil and gas wells. And a study calculated that in 2015, the issuance of fine particles (PM2,5) derived from plastics production caused 158,000 premature deaths (mostly in China and other parts of Asia).
Enigmatic chemical substances
With plastics there is also the circumstance that the origin of health hazards is not only in the polymer itself, but also in. These materials can contain more than 16,000 different, many with a harmful effect for the health of unknown dimensions. “Most of these known damages are due to the chemical substances present in the plastics, which are filtered from plastic products during use and reach people, especially children,” Langrigo warns.
A meta -analysis that reviewed studies and data of about 1.5 million people found “consistent evidence of multiple health effects at all stages of human life for many plastic chemical substances,” says scientists in The Lancet. A risk, by the way, especially high for babies in the maternal uterus and younger children. The reported damages range from a deterioration of reproductive potential (polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis), until perinatal effects (spontaneous abortion, low birth weight), decreased cognitive function, insulin resistance, hypertension and childhood obesity; And in adults, also diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, stroke, obesity and cancer.
One way to get into direct contact with these chemicals linked to plastics is. Another review with about a thousand studies analyzed on plastic materials in contact with food revealed that 40% of some 3,700 chemicals analyzed are released in food in certain circumstances. It influences, for example, exposure to high temperatures (when heating food in a) or the fat content and acidity of food.
But around these chemicals there is an immense knowledge emptiness: nothing is known about the risks of more than two thirds of known plastic chemicals. And of which there is data, approximately 75% – this is, about 4,200 substances – have been considered “highly dangerous for their toxic effects, their persistence, their bioaccumulation and mobility,” the scientists warn of the article.
The researchers also denounce that, despite their expansion in the environment and in everyday life, these substances are subject to much less scrutiny and surveillance than those used in other areas, such as the pharmaceutical sector.
Microplastics in the bowels
The other headache for the scientific community are microplastics. That is, tiny particles of these polymers that infest the globe and that, when breathing or eat, reach our bloodstream and sneak to the bowels. They have already been identified even within the liver, the kidney, the intestine or. And they are presumed harmful, although the real scientific community in the health of these material tiny. For now, experts have indications that they cause damage to cell DNA and suspect that they can spur numerous ailments, from inflammatory to cardiovascular.
Ricard Marcos, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and researcher in the European Plasticheal project, focused on deciphering the impact of health microplastics, describes one of the great problems to evaluate the risks of microplastics: “Exhibition levels and population under these levels is really relevant. And it is what we do not know. Microoplastic degradation and, the smaller the diameter of the pieces, the risk is greater because it has more capacity to disperse throughout the body ”. The scientist, who has not participated in the article of The Lancetadmits that, when you enter the Nano scale, with increasingly tiny particles, there is no way to quantify risk exposure levels.
Marcos agrees, however, that the impact of microplastics is “alarming” and this scientific article, although “does not contribute anything new”, it does clear “the urgency” of the problem.
The danger of waste
The entire life chain of a plastic goes to health. Also the management of these materials as waste. The group of workers who are dedicated to recycling are also groups of special risk, notice experts in The Lancet. Be due to its exposure to the burning of waste or by classifying waste plastics that can be contaminated with other toxic chemicals, the effects reported on health oscillate in an amalgam of pictures that go, from traumatic lesions and burns, to respiratory diseases, spontaneous abortions and cancer. “A particularly dangerous practice is the open -pit burn of PVC -coated computer cables to recover copper, which releases black smoke containing dioxins, benzene and fine particles (PM2,5) in the air,” the authors stand out.
The scientific warning arrives on the eve of the final round of members of the UN – will meet in Geneva (Switzerland) from August 5 to 14, 2025 – to conclude a world treaty on plastics that ends the plastic pollution. Scientists call not to delay decision making. “The states must take the problem of plastic and be ambitious in their efforts,” says Landrigan.
The scientist points to a key that must contain the treaty to protect human health: a global limit to plastic production (especially to reduce that of a single use) and regulations on the more than 16,000 chemical substances that are in plastics, with analysis of its toxicity and the withdrawal of the market of the most dangerous substances.
