{"id":342814,"date":"2025-08-14T03:17:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T03:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/342814\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T03:17:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T03:17:16","slug":"microplastics-have-invaded-the-air-and-our-bodies-can-a-plastics-treaty-clear-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/342814\/","title":{"rendered":"Microplastics have invaded the air and our bodies. Can a plastics treaty clear the air?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of delegates<\/a> have descended upon Geneva this week for what\u2019s supposed to be the culmination of years of negotiations that, if successful, are supposed to end in a groundbreaking global plastics treaty. They might be breathing in the very thing they\u2019re trying to clean up as they negotiate.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace tested the air<\/a> around the city just before the talks began this month and found a small amount of microplastics. It wasn\u2019t so much a rigorous study as it was a way to prove a point. Microplastics are turning up all over the place, including in the air we breathe.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why health and environmental advocates, as well as a coalition of governments, are pushing for an ambitious plastics treaty in Geneva. Recycling isn\u2019t enough<\/a> \u2014 only limiting production can stem the tide of plastic pollution, they contend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat you can find microplastics in urban air, that\u2019s not really shocking because it\u2019s been reported before in other cities. I think this is just a way of illustrating that nowhere is free from this pollution,\u201d says David Santillo, a senior scientist with Greenpeace Research Laboratories.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace strapped an air-monitoring device to a person while they went about their day in Geneva, spending about eight hours in and out of shops, cafes, office spaces, and a railway station. The samples they collected on July 17th were meant to show what a typical visitor to the city might be exposed to; they weren\u2019t able to take any samples within the negotiation rooms that delegates would actually use.<\/p>\n

The device had a replaceable silver filter that Greenpeace researchers were then able to analyze to see what particles they caught, which amounted to at least 165 fibers and fragments. The filters picked up a range of different materials like bits of skin, plant-based fibers, and what was likely soot. Greenpeace was interested in synthetic materials, however, and was ultimately able to identify 12 pieces of microplastics, including polyester, nylon, polyethylene used to make bottles and bags, and other types of plastics. That might not sound like much, but the organization only had the equipment to be able to detect larger particles that were at least 10 microns in size. (For comparison, the average human hair is about 70 microns in diameter.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they found the big ones, it\u2019s a pretty fair bet that the smaller ones were there, as well,\u201d says Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Public Health and the Common Good Program at Boston College, who was not involved in the Greenpeace study.<\/p>\n

Generally, the smaller the particle, the more problems it can potentially pose by being able to penetrate deeper into organs and tissues in the human body. A human brain might contain as much as a spoon\u2019s worth<\/a> of microplastics, research published<\/a> in the journal Nature Medicine earlier this year suggests.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, microplastics are pretty much everywhere in today\u2019s world,\u201d Landrigan says. He\u2019s the lead author of an August report<\/a>, published in the journal The Lancet, on the links between plastic pollution and health outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age,\u201d the report says, adding that plastics are responsible for $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses each year. The report accounts for all the risks along the lifecycle of plastic, including chemicals that workers and communities near manufacturing facilities are exposed to, and waste that breaks down into nanoplastic particles that have been found in human bodies and breastmilk.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age\u201d<\/p>\n

Scientists are still working to understand the health impacts of inhaling microplastics in the air. Landrigan points out that we at least know that all plastics are made of two main components, a carbon-based backbone derived from fossil fuels and chemical additives.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the microplastic comes into the human body, whether you inhale it or drink it with your water or eat it with your food, when it it gets into you and the plastics move from your gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream, the microplastic particles are carrying all those chemicals with them,\u201d Landrigan says.<\/p>\n

The more than 16,000 different chemicals used in plastics production \u2014 including the carcinogen vinyl chloride<\/a>, for example \u2014 are primarily responsible for the known health risks associated with plastics. But the toxicity of more than 75 percent of the chemicals in plastics have yet to be studied.<\/p>\n

Greenpeace doesn\u2019t claim to be assessing air quality in Geneva or the health impacts of what they found in their air samples. All they can show is the presence of microplastics in the air, adding to previous research<\/a> that has done the same. What\u2019s notable now is that Greenpeace has documented this at a time when leaders from around the world have the opportunity to actually do something about it.<\/p>\n

Negotiations on a plastics treaty in Geneva are scheduled to end on August 14th. In 2022, United Nations member states agreed to develop a legally binding pact on plastic pollution. It\u2019s been an uphill battle to agree on terms ever since. Major fossil fuel producing nations blocked a deal in December<\/a>, pushing negotiations past their initial 2024 deadline. So far this year, there\u2019s still a fight over whether focusing on recycling and reducing plastic waste is enough. The fossil fuel industry and countries including the US<\/a> that produce a lot of plastics and its ingredients are fighting efforts to exclude limits to plastic production from the treaty.<\/p>\n

A \u201chigh ambition coalition\u201d<\/a> launched by Rwanda and Norway, on the other hand, wants to address the full lifecycle of plastic, starting with production. It\u2019s also open<\/a> to using the treaty to phase out or restrict the use of problematic chemicals in plastics.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t make sense to simply mop up the mess plastic leaves behind without also turning off the faucet, says Angel Pago, Greenpeace global plastics campaign media lead. \u201cWe\u2019re brimming with plastic because of overproduction. And we cannot solve this crisis with just, you know, cleanups,\u201d Pago tells The Verge from Geneva.<\/p>\n

The Lancet article similarly says \u201cthe principal driver of this [health] crisis is accelerating growth in plastic production.\u201d Production has ballooned from 2 metric megatons in 1950 to 475 in 2022. Less than 10 percent of plastic waste has ever been recycled, in part because the many chemicals used to manufacture different types plastics make it difficult or uneconomical to rehash the material.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to do something about plastics, we need to cap plastic production,\u201d Landrigan says. \u201cI hope and I pray that the treaty negotiators are actually going to produce a treaty that protects human health.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/p>\n