This opinion was written by Andre Picard and was published in the Globe & Mail on January 9, 2026.
A man rides a motorbike past a pile of plastic waste in Vietnam’s Hung Yen province, in November, 2025. More than 450 million tonnes of plastics are manufactured each year.
‘There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?” is a memorable line from the classic 1967 movie The Graduate.
Almost six decades later, the admonition to think about plastics is more timely and urgent than ever. But not because of the business opportunity – instead, it’s because of the growing realization that plastics are having an adverse impact on our health.
“Plastics are a grave, growing, and under-recognized danger to human and planetary health,” a recently published study in The Lancet medical journal stated bluntly. “Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding US$1.5-trillion annually.” Think about it, indeed. Globally, more than 450 million tonnes of plastics are manufactured each year. Annual production has grown 400-fold since the Second World War, and is expected to hit a staggering 1.2 trillion tonnes by 2060.
What are all those plastics used for? Water bottles, tires, computers, food packaging, medical equipment, airplane parts, shampoos and just about any other product you can imagine.
It’s hard to overstate how revolutionary plastics have been, facilitating incredible advances in many fields: Medicine, engineering, food production, electronics, aerospace and more.
But the same qualities that make plastics useful – namely, their strength and durability – make them difficult to dispose of.
Plastics are essentially immortal. They end up in landfills and waterways, and in the air.
The majority of plastics end up being burned, while most of the rest pile up in the environment. It is estimated that the equivalent amount of a garbage truck full of plastics are dumped into oceans every minute of every day.
Despite our dutifully putting plastic waste out by the curb, very little of it is recycled – less than 10 per cent. It goes to the dump instead. That’s because plastic recycling is technically difficult and economically unviable. Let’s not forget, either, that plastics are made using fossil fuels. The plastic-manufacturing process releases about two gigatons of CO2 and other greenhouse-gas emissions into the atmosphere annually, contributing to climate change.
So, in addition to the planetary harm, what is all this doing to the health of humans, and other mammals?
In recent years, there has been growing interest in microplastics and nanoplastics, the tiny and often invisible bits of plastic that seep and ooze into our air, water and food.
Author and climate activist Assaad Razzouk calls microplastics the “mother of all oil spills.”
While it can take thousands of years for plastic to fully degrade, tiny microparticles are continually shed, especially when plastics are heated or burned.
One study, commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund, estimated that the average person inadvertently consumes up to five grams of plastic weekly – the equivalent of eating a credit card. (Some scientists have challenged the methodology, but the image remains a powerful one.)
Research suggests microplastics are accumulating in our brains (and other organs), and are common in breast milk and our bloodstreams. Animal research suggests exposure to microplastics can affect fertility and cognitive ability, and increase cancer risk, to name only a few worries.
There are, after all, more than 16,000 chemicals used in the manufacture of plastics. Some of them are toxic and carcinogenic; the potential impacts of many others are unknown.
The fossil-fuel and plastics industries argue there is no hard evidence that microplastics actually harm the health of people – the same arguments used by Big Tobacco to justify selling cigarettes, and by Big Oil to dismiss the effects of climate change.
The ultimate impact on human health is unclear because this sort of research is extremely complex, but it’s certainly not good.
There are certainly ways to mitigate the harms being caused by plastics and microplastics. Chief among them is reducing the unnecessary use of plastic products, particularly single-use plastics. Do we really need to produce 500 million bottles of water each year?
We could drastically reduce the use of plastic additives that are clearly harmful, like the widely used Bisphenol A (BPA), the chemical DEHP phthalate (which helps makes plastics more flexible), and the group of flame-retardant ethers known as PBDEs. We could also get a lot better at recycling, which principally requires better sorting.
“Plastics are the defining material of our age,” The Lancet has stated. As a result, plastics and microplastics are found everywhere, from the depths of the ocean to the highest mountains.
How we address the ubiquity of plastics, and their unintended consequences, will define the health of humanity, and the planet, in the years to come.
U of T researchers hope their study will spark further regulation limiting singleuse plastics
This article was written by Kevin Jiang and was published in the Toronto Star on October 23, 2025.
A shocking amount of microplastics — equivalent to the combined weight of around 18 cars — is estimated to flow through the Don River into Lake Ontario a year, seeping into the local food and water systems, researchers from the University of Toronto have discovered.
A similar tide of larger plastic items, mainly consisting of plastic bags and wet wipes, was also detected in the Don. The combined extent of the river’s plastic pollution eclipses that of similar rivers surveyed in the U.S., the study found.
“The amount we found in the Don was actually higher than the Chicago River,” said Chelsea Rochman, a professor of aquatic ecology at the U of T. “A lot of the plastic in the Don River also stays in the Don River, which is concerning when you think about the animals that live in there.”
Few places have gone untouched by microplastics. The tiny plastic shards, ranging between five millimetres to one micrometre in size, have been found everywhere from our soil and waterways to the Arctic and the sea floor. They’ve been detected in most human organs, including the brain, heart, and lungs.
The authors hope their results will help spark further regulation limiting the use of singleuse plastics in order to stem the swelling microplastic tide.
The paper, published Thursday in peerreviewed journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, found an estimated 522 billion microplastic particles — weighing approximately 36,000 kilograms in total — flow through the Don into the lake every year.
The researchers estimate another 20,000 pieces of larger “macroplastics” pass through the river annually, amounting to a total 160 kilograms of mass. The largest slice of these plastics, around 40 per cent, consisted of plastic bags and wet wipes, said Jacob Haney, the study’s lead author and a PhD student.
“There were way more microplastics being exported than macroplastics,” Haney said. “The bigger pieces, they tended to get caught in the river and not make it to Lake Ontario versus the microplastics.”
To reach their results, the team sampled water at four sites of the Don from 2022 to 2023, in storm flow and base flow conditions.
Haney said their study is part of a larger set of studies — researchers also surveyed the Ipswich River near Boston, Mass. as well as the north branch of the Chicago. But neither contained as many plastics as the Don: “We were surprised to see the Don River topped the other rivers,” Rochman said.
She also said many macroplastics came from “mismanaged waste, overflowing garbage cans, illegal dumping” or general littering.
Many of the wet wipes originated from flushing of the sheets down the toilet, she said These wipes then get deposited into the sewage system, which is connected with storm drains: “When you get a heavy rain, sometimes the sewage gets backed up and it will go empty out into the Don,” Rochman explained.
The sources of microplastics are myriad. Some are released as the larger plastics slowly break down in the Don. Others are flaked off as plastic products degrade, such as tiny fibres from clothing or microscopic chips of paint.
A lot of microplastics come from car tires releasing particles from wear and tear. Haney believes the region of Highway 401 that overlaps with the Don is thus “likely a huge source of microplastics.”
A great deal of research suggests that microplastic contamination can have profound consequences on marine ecosystems, from causing physical harm to modifying animal behaviours. What’s more, these particles can accumulate in the bodies of fish and other animals — so when we eat fish from the Don or Lake Ontario, we’re ingesting their microplastics as well.
Rochman’s team has investigated the microplastic content in sport fish from Humber Bay: “We have found hundreds of pieces of microplastics in the stomach of an individual fish. We find tens to hundreds of pieces in the muscle or the filet, the parts that we eat.
“That’s not typical. When we go out in the ocean to look at microplastics, we find maybe zero to 10 pieces in a fish. Here, we never find zero pieces.”
While the health risks associated with microplastics remain elusive, studies link the particles and their chemical additives with a greater risk of heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, infertility, birth defects and organ damage.
Rochman is pushing for more initiatives to clean up the Don.
Researchers estimate another 20,000 pieces of larger macroplastics pass through the river annually
This opinion was written by Thomas R. Verny and was published in the Globe & Mail on September 26, 2025.
Plastic pollution is the result of human actions and decisions. We must find a solution
Thomas R. Verny is a clinical psychiatrist, academic, award-winning author, poet and public speaker. He is the author of eight books, including the global bestseller The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and 2021’s The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness and Our Bodies.
In the 1967 film, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman portrays a 21year-old young man contemplating his future. A family friend pulls him aside and earnestly suggests that he should pursue a career in “plastics.” Though hardly anyone paid attention then, the advice turned out to be remarkably prophetic – and oblivious to its dire unintended consequences.
Less than 60 years later, plastics are everywhere. Relatively inexpensive and versatile, they are used in packaging, textiles, foams, car parts, cosmetics, home appliances, toys, bottles, automobile tires, paint … in fact, there is hardly anything manufactured or shipped that does not contain plastic. Excessive reliance on and improper disposal of plastics have gradually led to ever-increasing plastic pollution of the land, oceans and air.
Global plastic use is projected to grow from about 9.2 billion tons in 2017 to 34 billion tons in 2050. [1]. Even if we stopped the production of plastics entirely, the breakdown of plastics already in our environment into toxic particles will continue.
Plastic is a synthetic or semisynthetic polymer with numerous physicochemical properties, and its fragmentation can give rise to particles that can enter our ecosystem, where a process of constant breakdown facilitates their dispersion and absorption by different species, affecting multiple organs and systems. As if that was not concerning enough, we are now finding that the plastic debris can degrade into microplastics, that is, particles less than five millimetres in length, or even smaller nano-plastics, 1-100 nanometres in length, a size invisible to our eyes. I shall refer to them henceforth as MNPs.
Recently, delegates from 180 nations met at the United Nations office in Geneva to end the plastic pollution of the world. One hundred nations favoured a treaty that would reduce the reckless growth of plastic production and put global, legally binding controls on toxic chemicals used to make plastics. Since plastics are made mostly from fuels such as oil and gas, the United States and other oil-producing countries including Saudi Arabia, successfully opposed any limit on the productions of plastics. Upon adjournment, Bjorn Beeler, co-ordinator for the International Pollutants Elimination Network said, “Consensus is dead.” [2].
Twenty years ago, a paper published in the journal Science revealed the buildup of tiny plastic particles and fibres in the environment, coining the term “microplastics.” [3]. The widespread presence of MNPs in humans and the remotest parts of our planet has now been demonstrated in 7,000 studies. [4]. MNPs have been detected in more than 1,300 animal species, including fish, mammals, birds and insects. [5].
This August, just before the failed meeting in Geneva, an international group of experts summarized the current state of knowledge in the Lancet, one of the most reputable medical journals in the world. “There is no understating the magnitude of both the climate crisis and the plastic crisis,” said Philip Landrigan, the chief investigator. “They are both causing disease, death and disability today in tens of thousands of people, and these harms will become more severe in the years ahead as the planet continues to warm and plastic production continues to increase.”
MNPs are in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat including seafood, table salt, honey, sugar, beer and tea. The scientific evidence of their harmful effects on all living beings is emerging. The problem has never been more pressing. [6].
Of course, not everyone in the scientific community agrees with Dr. Landrigan. In his book, Shattering The Plastics Illusion: Exposing Environmental Myths, Chris DeArmitt argues that unfounded claims distort the public’s perception of plastics. [7]. He refers to studies such as one by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration that states: “the presence of environmentally derived microplastics and nano-plastics in food alone does not indicate a risk and does not violate FDA regulations unless it creates a health concern.” [8]. Unless it creates a health concern? How strange that the FDA has managed to stay utterly blind and deaf to the existence of myriad health concerns.
Plastics contain complex mixtures of chemicals, including the polymer backbone and additives, as well as unreacted starting substances, residual processing aids and non-intentionally added substances such as impurities and reaction byproducts. These chemicals can be released throughout the entire plastic life cycle. A study from Norway identified 4,219 chemicals of concern, representing one-quarter of all known plastic chemicals. These are persistent, bio-cumulative, mobile or toxic. Considering that 10,726 plastic chemicals lack official hazard classifications by regulatory agencies or industry, it stands to reason that there could be more chemicals of concern in plastics than the ones identified here. [9]. Additionally, uncontrolled landfilling or incineration can further exacerbate chemical releases. [10].
MNPs impact the feeding and digestive capabilities of marine organisms, as well as hinder the development of plant roots and leaves. [11]. Healthy and sustainable ecosystems depend on the proper functioning of microbiota; however, MNPs disrupt the balance of microbiota. [12].
Global plastic use is projected to grow from about 9.2 billion tons in 2017 to 34 billion tons in 2050. Even if we stopped the production of plastics entirely, the breakdown of plastics already in our environment into toxic particles will continue.
Other threats arise from chemicals in plastic such as BPA, phthalates and heavy metals like lead known or suspected to cause disruption to nervous, reproductive and immune systems, cell death by oxidative stress (an imbalance of free radicals and antioxidants), lung and liver impairments, inflammation and altered lipid and hormone metabolism. [13].
For animals, the physical properties of plastics may lead to harm such as blocked intestines. Animals are also injured when the plastics they ingest release the chemicals they contain. Some marine organisms seem to be eating more plastics and fewer nutrients. All this can be passed up the food chain to humans.
While we eliminate some MNPs through urine, feces and exhalation, many persist in our bodies forever. What happens once they enter our bodies is a question that worries a growing number of scientists and clinicians.
Some of the substances in plastics act as endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs). This is a very serious threat to our health because EDCs have been linked to declining sperm counts, altered puberty timing, infertility and developmental abnormalities in the reproductive organs. [14].
A review of maternal cell transport by way of the placenta (prenatally) and breast milk (postnatally) has shown that MNPs and many classes of EDCs can cross the neonatal gut, enter circulation and settle in various organs of offspring including the brain. [15,16, 17]. During pregnancy, maternal exposure to MNPs and EDCs may affect fetal growth, brain development, and longterm disease risk. [18].
Early-life exposure in children is particularly concerning, as hormonal systems are still developing, making them more vulnerable to permanent effects. Recent studies highlight the potential for MNP exposure during the perinatal and early-life periods to disrupt neurodevelopmental health. [19].
EDCs are also associated with metabolic disorders such as obesity, diabetes and thyroid dysfunction, since they can alter energy balance and glucose regulation. [20].
Neurodevelopmental outcomes, including attention deficits, lower IQ and behavioural changes, have been reported in populations with high exposure. [21]. Furthermore, some EDCs, like bisphenol A and certain pesticides, are suspected carcinogens, raising apprehension about increased cancer risk. [22].
MNPs enter our bodies by way of contact with our skin, inhalation or ingestion. Depending on how they gain access to the body and where they lodge, MNPs can cause various illnesses in humans. Because of their small size they can penetrate many of the body’s natural defence barriers. MNPs accumulate in the respiratory system, digestive and circulatory systems, liver, spleen and brain. [22]. MNPs have been identified in virtually every human tissue, including placenta, sputum, breast milk, sperm and testicles [20, 21, 22].
In March of this year, according to preliminary findings presented at the American Heart Association’s Vascular Discovery 2025 Scientific Sessions, people with plaque buildup in their carotid arteries carry greater amounts of microplastic particles in those arteries than individuals with healthy vessels. The levels were especially elevated among those who had suffered a stroke, transient ischemic attack or shortterm vision loss linked to blocked arteries. [23].
When MNPs successfully enter the central nervous system through the blood circulation, cerebrospinal fluid or the olfactory nerve [24], they trigger a cascading series of pathological events. The primary mechanisms identified are the induction of oxidative stress, robust neuro-inflammatory responses, mitochondrial dysfunction and direct structural damage to neurons and synaptic connections. [25]. Over time, this chain reaction of pathological events precipitates alterations in neurotransmitter balance, impaired neurogenesis and accelerated neurodegenerative processes.
After entering the central nervous system, MNPs do not distribute evenly. Evidence indicates they accumulate in the hippocampus, amygdala, cerebral cortex and substantia nigra. These structures are essential for cognition, emotional regulation and motor control. Their damage accounts for cognitive and behavioural impairments documented in numerous experimental studies. [26].
While organs such as the liver and kidneys are efficient in excreting foreign compounds, the brain appears less capable of eliminating MNPs leading to a gradual buildup over time. The brain is affected not only by direct MNPs presence but also by remote inflammatory signals originating in the gut, thereby introducing a secondary, system-wide pathway for neurotoxicity. [27].
A 2025 mouse study [28] found that MNPs may act as powerful environmental agents that, when combined with a genetic susceptibility, can accelerate the onset and progression of conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This has profound implications for public health, suggesting that MNP exposure is a modifiable risk factor for neurodegenerative disease progression like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
R. A. Carlos recently reported on an alarming five-fold increase in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on the island of Guam from 2016 to 2022. He reviewed 95 studies and concluded that the increased trend paralleled the widespread exposure of young children to microplastics. [29].
Through progressive damage to brain regions involved in learning, memory, emotional regulation, anxiety and motor control, MNPs erode the neural substrates underlying behaviour and psychological health. Although they may not directly produce clinical “personality changes,” current evidence indicates that MNPs induce a spectrum of neurobiological and functional impairments that are likely to manifest as marked shifts in cognition, mood and behaviour. [30, 31].
Today, less than 10 per cent of plastic is recycled. [6]. There is much work to be done. Each one of us should avoid anything plastic. Governments at all levels need to impel plastics manufacturers to disclose their chemical composition, and redesign them so that they do not release microplastics or known chemicals of concern.
Microplastic pollution is the result of human actions and decisions. We created the problem and now we must create the solution.
To see the footnotes for this story, go to tgam.ca.
New study reveals a surprising amount in indoor air, creating a long list of health risks
This article was written by Kevin Jiang and was published in the Toronto Star on August 3, 2025.
You could be inhaling more than 71,000 microscopic plastic fragments every day while at home or cruising in your car, a new study suggests.
The microplastics, most of which are smaller than a speck of dust and seven times thinner than the width of a hair, are capable of penetrating deep into the lungs, the authors say.
“The concentration we found is 100fold higher than previous extrapolated estimates,” said authors Nadiia Yakovenko and Jeroen Sonke in an interview with PLOS One, the peerreviewed journal where the study was published Wednesday.
Plastic particles have been found all around us, from our water and food to the air we breathe. It has been found in breast milk and almost every organ, including the brain, heart and, yes, lungs.
“The findings from this paper make a lot of sense,” said Miriam Diamond, an environmental chemist and professor at the University of Toronto who is not affiliated with the study. “We know that we’re exposed indoors to plastic additives, but the mechanism (of exposure) was always a little bit questionable.”
How much plastic are you breathing?
The researchers, from the Université de Toulouse in France, took seven samples of air from their own homes and five from their cars. These were analyzed using a technique called Raman spectroscopy, to determine the concentration of microplastics suspended in air.
They counted a median 528 microplastics for every cubic metre of indoor space in the average home. In the car, the number quadrupled to 2,238 microplastics per cubic metre.
Out of these, 94 per cent were smaller than 10 micrometres in length — tiny enough to penetrate deep into the lungs.
Based on that, the team estimated that adults will inhale around 68,000 microplastics smaller than 10 micrometres while indoors every day, and about 3,200 plastics between10 to 300 micrometres in size.
“People spend an average of 90 per cent of their time indoors, including homes, workplaces, shops, transportation, etc.,” the authors said. “All the while they are exposed to microplastic pollution through inhalation without even thinking about it.”
Wait, why do cars have so many microplastics?
Car cabins are small, often enclosed spaces mostly made of synthetic materials like plastic, from the dashboard to seat coverings.
These materials can shed tiny plastic particles as they go through the wearandtear of daily use, solar irradiance, friction and heat. “Just imagine a car that was baking outside during the heat wave,” Diamond said. “Temperatures can be extraordinarily high, so that’s going to promote a breakdown of plastic.”
Furthermore, studies show that plastics in cars are often more toxic because they contain greater levels of flame retardants, Diamond said.
“Unlike homes, car cabins often have limited ventilation, allowing microplastic particles to accumulate and concentrate in the air,” the researchers added. “As a result, they can be inhaled in higher amounts during regular commutes or long drives.”
Are microplastics bad for your health?
The science is still out on exactly how microplastics are affecting our health, but there have been hints.
Evidence has linked the plastics and their additives to a greater risk of heart disease, various types of cancer, neurodegenerative disease, infertility, birth defects, organ damage and more.
Much of the harm comes from the toxic additives they may carry, from dyes to UV blockers such as bisphenol A or phthalates, Yakovenko and Sonke said.
“When microplastics are inhaled, these tiny particles can enter deep into our respiratory system and potentially cause inflammation or irritation,” the authors said.
Diamond added that the type of plastic and its shape also factor into the equation.
“A microplastic made of styrene is way more toxic than a microplastic made of polyethylene or polypropylene,” she said, adding that a sharp, jagged microplastic is more likely to cause damage than a round one.
The authors hope their findings could help guide public health recommendations, indoor air quality standards or even affect the products and materials we use in the future.
“I hope that our findings will raise awareness about indoor air as a significant source of microplastic exposure through inhalation,” they said.
This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Star on November 26, 2024.
Negotiators gathered in Busan, South Korea, on Monday in a final push to create a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution.
It’s the fifth time the world’s nations have convened to craft a legally binding plastic pollution accord. In addition to the national delegations, representatives from the plastics industry, scientists and environmentalists have come to shape how the world tackles the surging problem.
“We must end plastic pollution before plastic pollution ends us,” said Kim Wansup, South Korea’s minister of environment.
The planet is “choking on plastic,” said the United Nations. It’s polluting lakes, rivers, oceans and people’s bodies. “Don’t kick the can, or the plastic bottle, down the road,” UN Environment Programme executive director Inger Andersen said in a message to negotiators. This “is an issue about the intergenerational justice of those generations that will come after us and be living with all this garbage. We can solve this and we must get it done in Busan,” she said in an interview.
The previous four global meetings have revealed sharp differences in goals and interests. This week’s talks go through Saturday. Led by Norway and Rwanda, 66 countries plus the European Union say they want to address the amount of plastic on Earth by controlling design, production, consumption and where plastic ends up.
This article was written by David Silverberg and was published in the Toronto Star on November 21, 2024.
It’s estimated the average American ingests between 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles per year.
They can be hard to see with the naked eye. But they’re swirling inside you right now, and in everyone you know, too.
Microplastics, minuscule bits of plastic no wider than a strand of hair, have invaded the human body at a worrying rate over the past few decades. They can be found in breast milk, testicles, hearts, kidneys and lungs. It’s estimated the average American ingests between 39,000 to 52,000 microplastic particles per year (no equivalent Canadian data is available).
The trouble with microplastics is that they are in almost everything. A September 2024 report from Nature found that more than 3,600 chemicals approved for use in food packaging, kitchenware or food processing equipment have been found in humans. Another recent study suggested that leaveon cosmetics are also a common source of microplastics.
But what’s harder to see is more complex to solve. It’s imperative that both government agencies and corporate sectors step up to enact change, as the status quo won’t be sufficient any longer.
Among the challenges: we don’t yet have a firm grasp on is what microplastics are actually doing to us. As Paul Anastas, the director of Yale University’s Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, said, “our bodies and the environment have not been given the chance to evolve to process these manmade polymers.”
Several studies have found a potential link between microplastics in the human body and an increased risk of contracting certain conditions. A March 2024 study concluded that the presence of microplastics may boost the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular problems among people with heart disease.
Another early experiment with mice revealed how microplastics exposure can lead to peculiar behaviour “akin to dementia in humans.”
Now, we’re neckdeep in a health crisis due to how ubiquitous plastic has become in our lives.
There is reason for hope, though. Health Canada this year announced a partnership with an array of Canadian academic institutions to study microplastics’ prevalence in food, food packaging, drinking water, indoor and outdoor air, as well as dust.
Health Canada went a step further this year by suggesting it was considering limiting PFAs, the socalled “forever chemicals” that stay in our bodies for years and which also break down into microplastics.
While nothing has yet been announced, Health Canada’s is also looking at “enabling industries to voluntarily phase out PFAS.”
Let’s not fool ourselves, though. Many businesses responsible for microplastics pollution prioritize their bottom line over safety standards, and eliminating PFAS and similar chemicals will add to their expense sheet. The same challenge exists for decreasing microplastics use.
But corporations shouldn’t have to wait until Health Canada mandates to take unprecedented action. They should step up and work diligently to eliminate plastic from a variety of its offerings, which undoubtedly will be labourintensive.
After all, what’s the alternative? Being content to allow Canadians to contract blood or breast cancer?
Clearly not. Instead, for now, Canadians need to know which products are brimming with microplastics. The World Economic Forum goes so far as to suggest a need to “enforce product labelling requirements” so consumers know which products might expose them to microplastics.
But steps like regulation and even banning microplastics will still need innovation to hurdle this challenge. For example, Western University engineers came up with a hempbased packaging material that is entirely plasticfree. True, it’s a pricier option than the standard stretchy material we use today. But investment in new materials that don’t emit microplastics into the environment, and our bodies, is a sound strategy for any business looking for more than just shortterm profit.
Still, even the most responsible companies might need a bit of a nudge to get there. If there is enough momentum, government policy and stringent guidelines could help bring about muchneeded reform in the sectors in desperate need of it.
Researchers comb river for secrets of Great Lakes microplastics
This article was written by Carol Thompson and was published in the Toronto Star on October 13, 2024.
Wayne State University researchers temporarily shock fish to sleep during a study looking for microplastics in the Great Lakes in September in Dexter, Mich.
Ali Shakoor took a break from his morning field work to lay two small bluegill in his palm, displaying the catch his colleagues had netted from a riffling nook of the Huron River.
The fish are opportunistic foragers. They fit squarely within the ecosystem in which Shakoor and a team of Wayne State University researchers are searching for microplastics, a little-understood pollutant moving through Metro Detroit waterways — and likely fish, animals and people as well.
“If microplastics are being moved by the fish, they’re showing up in Lake Erie, people are catching those fish and now those microplastics are making their way into humans,” said Shakoor, a Wayne State doctoral candidate. “They’re carrying different types of chemicals, hormone disrupters, chemicals that are used in tire manufacturing plants. This gives us a critical view into other aspects that may be impacting human health because we’re basically, I mean, it sounds dramatic, but we’re kind of under assault from all sides.”
Shakoor and his colleagues descended on a quiet stretch of the Huron River in Dexter Township’s Hudson Mills Metropark recently to collect samples of air, water, sediment, algae, bugs and fish.
They planned to do the same at another site along the river in Brighton at the Island Lake Recreation Area.
The Wayne State teams are trying to answer major questions in microplastics research: How do the particles get into rivers, how do they move through the food web, and what chemicals are leaching off them.
Microplastics are tiny plastic particles that shed from anything containing plastic, such as grocery bags, medical equipment, paints, clothes, outdoor gear or car tires. They can get so small they are practically invisible.
The particles have become ubiquitous. Microplastics have infiltrated places as far-flung as coral skeletons and Antarctic snow, and as precious as human brain tissue, testes and placentas.
Though they have embedded themselves across the globe, the particles, their movement through ecosystems and the effects they have on people and the environment are not well understood, said Donna Kashian, director of environmental sciences and biology professor at Wayne State University.
Microplastics are also difficult to study, since they are a relatively new area of research, can be made with different chemical compounds and take different shapes, like beads or fibres, she said. But it’s worth the effort since plastics have become so essential in places such as hospitals.
Other toxic compounds, such as PCBs, have been outlawed from production. While there’s plenty of room to limit the use of single-use plastics, “there’s no end in sight” for plastics entirely, Kashian said.
“So what we’re seeing now is only really (microplastic pollution created) since the 1970s when it went into huge production, the late ’60s,” Kashian said.
“That’s a small window. Now they’re everywhere. In another 30 years, where are we? And another 30 years? And we know very little still.”
Microplastics pollution has caught the attention of the International Joint Commission, a binational commission of Canadian and U.S. leaders that guides the management and protection of the Great Lakes. The commission’s science advisory team describes plastic pollution as “an emerging concern for Great Lakes water quality” and is developing frameworks for monitoring microplastics and determining the risks they pose. Kashian is a member of the IJC’s Great Lakes Science Advisory Board.
The samples the Wayne State teams collect this month will provide a winter’s worth of lab work, Kashian said. Her biology students will look for particles in the samples, an extensive process that requires dissection, high-level imaging and more. Students working with Zhijiang Lu, a Wayne State assistant professor who studies environmental contaminants, will look for chemical pollution that is associated with the microplastic particles.
Their analysis will shed light on what happens to microplastics when they hit a river, including whether they move up the food chain and, if so, whether they get more concentrated along the way.
“There’s no location anywhere on Earth where anyone has gone in and done a total trophic level-wide analysis” of microplastics, Kashian said. “That’s our goal here.”
The samples students collect this month also will shed light on where the Huron River’s microplastics come from.
Muritadah Oshinuga, a Wayne State master’s biology student, has a hunch. Wearing a pair of waders, he gestured toward the North Territorial Road bridge over their Hudson Mills Metropark sampling site. Cars and large dump trucks rumbled by overhead.
“Those tires, they find their way into the waterbodies,” Oshinuga said. “They have some effects on aquatic organisms.”
Oshinuga is studying the effects tire particles have on aquatic insects, tiny fleas and worms that serve as a base of the food web in the Huron River. In the laboratory, he has seen that higher levels of tire particles are worse for the small creatures, stopping them from growing, reproducing or even surviving.
But that’s in the lab. Oshinuga also wants to understand how many tire particles are actually in Metro Detroit waterways, and how those levels affect aquatic bugs.
“Nobody’s actually looking at the effects of tire plastics, you know?” Oshinuga said. “The effect in the waterbodies. But they find their way (in) through the tear and wear of these tires. Not so much research has been done on that, so it’s a good thing to actually try to look and see the effect of tire plastics and what it does to aquatic organisms in the environment.”
Particles that shed off vehicle tires are even less understood than other microplastics, Kashian said.
But the problem has been out there for a long time. Vehicle tires are made out of lots of components, noted Sam Abuelsamid, a research analyst with Guidehouse Insights market advisory firm. That includes steel, natural and synthetic rubbers, carbon made from petroleum, nylon and other synthetics. Tires shed tiny pieces of those materials as they wear.
“You’re driving down the road, and little particles get worn off your tires,” Abuelsamid said. “Some of it gets airborne, because they’re small enough to be airborne, but eventually it does fall to the ground because it has some mass to it. When it rains, those chunks of rubber get washed into the sewers and watersheds. So it gets into all kinds of places.
“It’s a major source of microplastics in lakes and rivers and oceans.”
Heavier automobiles and electric vehicles, with their weighty batteries and considerable torque, tend to shed more particles from their tires, Abuelsamid said.
Additives in rubber, other tire components and microplastics leach out of the particles once they reach the environment, Lu said.
Lu and his students are studying the levels of chemicals associated with microplastics in the Huron River in conjunction with Kashian’s students.
Detroit built the automobile and the metro region has “very heavy traffic,” so it stands to reason that the region’s rivers would carry some of the particles automobiles shed, Lu said. Where there is particle pollution, there is chemical pollution.
Lu and his students are specifically looking at 6PPD, a compound that prevents tires from breaking down but is toxic enough to kill some fish, including coho salmon, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The compound is used in all U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association passenger, light truck, truck, bus and motorcycle tires, according to a testimony the association’s executive vice-president Tracey Norberg gave to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Chemical Safety, Waste Management in July.
There is no commercially available alternative, Norberg said.
But the association’s members are working with the U.S. Geological Survey to find options that are safer for the environment, he said.
The association is “optimistic that we will have identified one or more possible alternatives that hold promise to replace or materially reduce 6PPD (the rubber preservative) in motor vehicle tires,” Norberg said.
Ultimately, the findings from Wayne State students’ microplastics research won’t be about the water, algae, bugs or fish they collect this month, Shakoor said. It will be about people.
“In ecology, we’re taught that everything is interconnected,” Shakoor said.
“So you can’t have a healthy human population here when the ecosystem or the environment around that population is doing bad. Everything has to work in a symbiotic type relationship.
“We’re just trying to see if this is indeed a pathway to humans and whether or not it could eventually impact human health.”
The International Joint Commission’s science advisory team describes plastic pollution as ‘an emerging concern for Great Lakes water quality’ and is developing frameworks for monitoring microplastics and determining the risks they pose
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