The avalanche of chemical and plastic waste created by man around the world has greatly exceeded safe limits for humanity or the planet, concludes an international team of 14 scientists who have evaluated, for the first time, the impact on the stability of the system terrestrial from the cocktail of synthetic chemicals and other “new entities” that are inundating our environment.
too many tests
There are an estimated 350,000 different manufactured chemicals on the market and large volumes of them end up in the environment ; they include plastics, pesticides, industrial chemicals, chemicals in consumer products, antibiotics, and other pharmaceuticals. These are entirely new, man-made entities with effects largely unknown in the Earth system.
“ There has been a 50-fold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950. This is expected to triple again by 2050,” explains Patricia Villarubia-Gómez of the Stockholm Resilience Center and co-author of the study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
Humanity has exceeded a planetary limit related to environmental pollutants, including plastics. And we have to do something. Recycling efforts have increased substantially in the last few decades, that’s true, but sadly, they’re failing to solve the problem.
“The rate at which these contaminants are appearing in the environment far outstrips the ability of governments to assess global and regional risks, let alone control any potential problems,” says Bethanie Carney Almroth of the University of Gothenburg and co-author of the study. job.
We may have to ask ourselves:
Is there a limit to the amount of waste we can throw down the throat of our planet?
No, but there should be. The Earth is suffocating with plastic and other substances and therefore there is an urgent need to put caps or limits on production, the scientists concluded.
In 2009, an international team of researchers identified nine planetary boundaries that mark stable planet health since the dawn of civilization. These limits include greenhouse gas emissions, the ozone layer, forests, fresh water, and biodiversity. In 2015, four of the nine limits had been exceeded. Novel entities remained unquantified. Until now.
Chemicals and plastics are affecting biodiversity, accumulating additional stress on already disturbed ecosystems. Pesticides and plastics are the worst enemies of life on the planet. Pesticides indiscriminately kill living organisms and plastics are ingested by living things. “Some chemicals are interfering with hormone systems, disrupting growth, metabolism and reproduction in wildlife,” explains Carney. It is a cycle of destruction that does not bring anything good to anyone or anything that we live on this planet.
And recycling is not enough . Less than 10% of the world’s plastic is currently recycled, while the production of these materials has doubled to 367 million tonnes since 2000 and plastics contain more than 10,000 different chemicals. It has gotten out of hand. The total mass of plastics on the planet is now more than double the mass of all living mammals, and about 80% of all plastics produced remain in the environment.
“We need to work to implement a fixed limit on the production and release of chemicals,” says Carney Almroth. “And switching to a circular economy is really important. That means changing materials and products so they can be reused and not wasted, designing chemicals and products for recycling, and better evaluating chemicals for their safety and sustainability throughout their impact pathway in the health system. Earth”, adds Sarah Cornell of the Stockholm Resilience Center and co-author of the study.
Meeting in Nairobi at the end of February
The fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly plans to tackle the issue of plastic pollution “from the source to the sea” , according to the head of the United Nations Environment Programme, Inger Andersen.
Referencia: Persson, L., Carney Almroth, Collins, C.D., Cornell, S., de Wit, C. et.al. 2022. Outside the Safe Operating Space of the Planetary Boundary for Novel Entities
Environ. Sci. Technol., https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158
