New study: Plastic pollution worsens the impacts of all planetary boundaries

Plastics are not as safe and inert as many might think, according to a new research article written by an international team of researchers. Using the planetary boundaries framework, the researchers conclude that plastic pollution impacts all nine boundaries affecting the environment, health, and human wellbeing.

Over 500 million tons of plastics are produced annually, yet only nine percent are recycled worldwide. This widespread production and insufficient recycling cause problems everywhere, from the peak of Mount Everest to the deepest part of the Mariana Trench.

“Seeking solutions, it is necessary to consider the full life cycle of plastics, starting from the extraction of fossil fuel and the primary plastic polymer production,” says the article’s lead author Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, PhD candidate at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Through a review of the scientific literature on the environmental impacts of plastics, the research team shows that plastic pollution is now altering some major processes at the scale of the entire Earth system. This impact extends to global issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and the use of freshwater and land.

The paper emphasizes the need to consider the complexity of plastics. As synthetic polymer-based materials associated with thousands of other chemicals, their impacts occur throughout the full life cycle of these products and materials.

“Plastics are often seen as something that makes our lives easier and that can be ‘easily cleaned-up’ once it becomes waste. But this is far from reality. Most plastics are made up of thousands of different chemicals. Many of them, such as endocrine disruptors and forever chemicals, which pose toxicity and harm to ecosystems and human health,” explains Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez.

Until recently, the scientific community has mostly studied these impacts separately, without addressing interactions between them. Also, public discourse and policy tend to address plastics as mainly a waste problem.

“The impacts of plastics in the Earth system are complex and interconnected, and this work clearly demonstrates how plastics are acting to destabilize the system,” says Centre researcher Sarah Cornell, co-author of the article.

The researchers reviewed publicly available data on plastics production, but noted that there are major challenges in obtaining accurate data due to inconsistent reporting, lack of standardization, and insufficient methodological details. Despite these issues, the evidence clearly shows how plastics contribute to environmental problems on a global scale, both directly and through indirect cumulative effects.

As the international Plastics Treaty negotiations near closure, the research team calls for experts and policymakers to shift away from considering plastics pollution as merely a waste management issue, and instead as a problem that requires addressing material flows throughout the entire impact pathway. This approach allows for more timely and effective detection, attribution, and mitigation of plastics' Earth system effects.

Understanding the systemic interactions of plastics in the planetary boundaries framework can inform strategies for more sustainable responses, as an integrative part of climate change, biodiversity and natural resource-use policy.

“The solutions we strive to develop must be considered with this complexity in mind, addressing the full spectra of safety and sustainability to protect people and the planet,” says co-author Bethanie Carney Almroth from University of Gothenburg.

Read 'Plastics pollution exacerbates the impacts of all planetary boundaries' here »