Having a Credit Card for Lunch

Perhaps you’re thinking that title can’t be right. You often pay for lunch with a credit card, but you don’t ever actually eat one. Sadly, I must report that you probably eat one every week. Plastic is now so ubiquitous in the environment that it has turned up in human breast milk and blood. Research commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund found that widespread contamination in drinking water and food means some people may ingest a credit card worth of microplastics every week. Yet efforts to stem the flow of plastic waste remain almost nonexistent, said Sherri Mason, a Penn State Erie professor and plastic pollution researcher, who was the first to identify microplastic pollution in the Great Lakes in 2013.

Now scientists are scrambling to study how plastics ingestion affects human health. Microplastics come from various sources, including litter like tiny nurdles and water bottles, as well as wear and tear on plastic products that seem everywhere in everyday life. Polyester fleece blankets and shirts release plastic into wastewater with every wash. Car tires emit plastic dust as they wear against road surfaces. “Scientists fear society is disregarding a major environmental and health hazard,” said Rodrigo Fernandez-Valdivia, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine at Wayne State University. Fernandez-Valdivia is part of a contingent of researchers studying how plastic exposure is affecting human health. The evidence from research on animals is worrying. Ecotoxicologists found that fish exposed to polyethylene were smaller, lighter, and more likely to die earlier. Mice that consumed microplastics showed impaired learning and memory behavior, breaking down the central nervous system that keeps brains healthy. Comparatively little is known about how microplastics affect human health. Research has shown that microplastics can damage cells, resulting in allergic reactions, and cell death. Fernandez-Valdivia said microplastics could also affect male fertility and infant development. “This isn’t going to be a one generation type of problem; it will be a multi-generational problem.”

There is no easy solution to this problem. Advocates say the best way to avert these risks is to eliminate plastic from the supply chains. That would be no small feat. Instead, society’s plastic dependence is only growing. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, plastic waste globally is expected to triple by 2060. In Michigan, Senator Jeff Irwin has introduced legislation to ban plastic bags, a major source of plastic waste. But these efforts have stalled in the Legislature. Irwin blames industry lobbyists “who run our legislature,” avoiding accountability for the pollution they create from plastic. “I think it’s fundamentally ugly to let citizens eat the cost of this,” he said. Perhaps we can take his words quite literally.

Michigan Representative, Laurie Pohutsky says, “This is going to have large scale environmental impacts, because it’s showing up pretty much everywhere.” With comprehensive policies off the table for now, environmental regulators say they’re focused on educating the public and policymakers about the dangers microplastics pose while consumers and water plant operators are left searching for ways to strip away the compounds before they enter our taps.

Absent new laws to keep plastic out of the supply chains, regulators, and all of us, can do more to crack down on littering, something that can be done without changing the laws. We can decide not to use plastic bags and throw away products in plastic containers that aren’t recyclable.

But all of this leaves Mason, the scientist that first discovered the Great Lakes microplastics problem, feeling frustrated and angry. “Ninety-five percent of all species that have existed on this planet have gone extinct, and we are working ourselves in that direction,” she said. “If humans want to still be here, then we need to grow up and act like it.”

This article was adapted from an article written and published by Bridge Michigan, a nonpartisan news source, on November 22, 2022.