Global plastic pollution reaches point of no return: irreversible damage is inevitable
According to a recent study published in Science on July 2 by researchers from Sweden, Norway and Germany, current global rates of plastic pollution can trigger impacts that humanity will be unable to reverse.
The authors asserted that plastic pollution is a global problem and that substantial reductions in plastic emissions into the environment are “the reasonable policy response”.
Plastic is everywhere
(Photo: Getty Images)
From deserts and mountain peaks to deep waters and arctic snow, plastic can be found all over the world. Emissions of plastic to the world’s lakes, rivers and seas ranged from 9 to 23 million metric tonnes per year in 2016, with a comparable amount being released into the ground each year. If business-as-usual scenarios are used, these numbers are expected to almost quadruple by 2025.
“Plastic is firmly entrenched in our culture and it leaks all over the environment, even in countries with well-developed waste treatment infrastructure,” says Matthew MacLeod, senior research author and professor at the University. from Stockholm.
Even though scientists and the general public have become more aware of plastic pollution in recent years, he says emissions are increasing.
Plastic pollution
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Plastic pollution is not only an environmental concern, but also a “political and economic one,” according to Mine Tekman, a Ph.D. candidate at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany and co-author of the study.
She believes that current remedies, such as recycling and cleaning technologies, are insufficient and that the problem must be addressed at its source.
“All over the world, technical methods of recycling and removing plastic from the environment are being promoted. As customers, we assume that everything would be recycled automatically if we separated our plastic waste correctly. However, plastic recycling has many technological constraints, and countries with excellent infrastructure have exported plastic waste to countries with poor infrastructure. “
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Too much plastic
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When the quantity of plastic emitted exceeds the quantity removed by cleaning efforts and natural environmental processes, which occurs through a multi-step process known as weathering, plastic builds up in the environment.
“There are many distinct mechanisms that make plastic wet, and we’ve come a long way to understand them. However, the properties of plastic pollution are constantly changing due to inclement weather, which raises new questions, according to Hans Peter Arp, a researcher at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) and professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. (NTNU), who is also a co-author of the study.
“Because degradation is gradual and ineffective in preventing buildup,” adds Arp, “exposure to weathered plastic will only increase”. Because of its continual emissions and its environmental permanence, plastic is a “poorly reversible contaminant”.
As co-author Annika Jahnke of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and professor at RWTH Aachen University explains, remote areas are particularly vulnerable.
“In remote locations, cleanings will not be able to remove plastic debris, and tampering with large plastic objects will inevitably result in the generation of large numbers of micro and nano plastic particles, as well as the leaching of chemicals. that have been added to plastic and other chemicals that break down the backbone of the plastic polymer. Therefore, plastic in the environment is a moving target that becomes more and more complicated and mobile. It is difficult, if not impossible, to predict where it will accumulate and what the consequences will be. to have.”
Environmental damage
(Photo: Tom Fisk)
Plastic pollution alone can create environmental damage through the entanglement of animals and toxic consequences. Nevertheless, it can also interact with other environmental stressors in remote areas to generate far-reaching, even global, effects.
The exacerbation of climate change due to the disruption of the global carbon pump, the loss of biodiversity in the ocean where plastic pollution acts as an additional stressor to overfishing and the continued loss of habitat due to changes in water temperature, nutrient supply and chemical exposure are only hypothetical effects exhibited in the new study.
Overall, the authors see the possibility that plastic pollution today will have global and weakly reversible consequences in the future as a “compelling motivation” for targeted actions to dramatically reduce emissions. .
“Right now, we are putting an increasing amount of poorly reversible plastic pollution into the ecosystem. We have yet to see widespread evidence of negative repercussions, but if plastic spoilage becomes a serious problem, we may not be able to. reverse it, “MacLeod warns.
“Ignoring the build-up of chronic plastic pollution in the ecosystem can come at a high price. So the reasonable thing to do is to take action as soon as possible to reduce plastic emissions to the environment.”
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