There is nothing healthier than drinking some water – or so I’ve always told my kids. It doesn’t contain sugar or colour additives – as one person used to tell us as children, ‘it’s sky juice’! What could be better?
Then, not long ago, one of my kids decided to inform me that there are 240,000 plastic particles, micro and nano plastics, in a standard one-litre plastic water bottle.
While I happily congratulated myself on not having used plastic water bottles for many years, it got me thinking about how plastic intersects with my life.
Here I sit at my computer (plenty of plastic) typing on my plastic keyboard, sitting in my plastic chair on my plastic-based carpet, with my plastic mobile phone, mouse, window blind, and wearing my plastic-infused clothes. I mean, where would we be without elastane in our knickers? I get why the Victorians had split drawers! It was either that or become a speed knot expert as I rushed to the loo. In fact, I think without elastane I’d be a commando!
Heading home, I got into my plastic-imbued car, on my way to do the shopping where I collect my plastic packaged vegetables, milk, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, tins of beans and tomatoes (plastic-lined tins) – to be honest, it is hard to find something that isn’t surrounded in plastic.
Itty bitty plastics can cross biological barriers and enter the bloodstream, tissues, and major organs, including crossing the blood-brain barrier, and scientists link them to heightened risks of cardiovascular disease, reproductive issues, immune system dysfunction, and metabolic disorders.
But as Kara Meister, MD, a pediatric otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at Stanford Medicine points out, ‘just because you have a little plastic in you doesn’t necessarily mean doomsday.’ (https://med.stanford.edu)
Along with Desiree LaBeaud, MD, a pediatric infectious diseases physician at Stanford Medicine, they say ‘that reducing exposure likely lowers health risks’.
While the US federal government has set a goal of eliminating single-use plastics from all operations by 2035, with Trump in the White House that policy was probably a victim of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
With 450 million metric tonnes of plastic produced every year, an amount expected to triple by 2060, we need systemic change to how we produce, use, recycle, and dispose of plastic.
LaBeaud argues that ‘policymakers should set caps on plastics production, eliminate all unnecessary single-use plastics, phase out all toxic substances used in plastics manufacturing, and pass a global treaty to end plastics pollution.’
In 1894, The Times predicted that within 50 years, every street in London would be buried under nine feet of horse manure. I hope plastic is the modern version and we don’t all drown in metaphorical horseshit!
Aslan Shand, editor
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