Researchers from the fields of healthcare, the ocean and the environment have collaborated to quantify plastic's risks to the environment. The Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health presents the first full analysis, showing plastic is a hazard at every stage of its life cycle.

The Minderoo Foundation is one of Australasia’s largest philanthropies, with $1.7 billion funds invested in philanthropic causes. The Minderoo-Monaco Commission, launched during Monaco Ocean Week, was formed to break down the silos in research on multiple hazards that plastic poses.

The Commission concludes that plastic causes disease, impairment, and premature mortality at every stage of its life cycle, with the health repercussions disproportionately affecting vulnerable, low-income, minority communities, particularly children. Toxic chemicals that are added to plastic and routinely detected in people are, amongst others, known to increase the risk of miscarriage, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. Plastic waste in the ocean, with micro- and nano plastics particles, contaminate the water and the sea floor, entering the marine food chain.

Professor Sarah Dunlop at Minderoo Foundation, said: “These findings put us on an unequivocal path to demand the banning or severely restricting of unnecessary, avoidable, and problematic plastic items, many of which contain hazardous chemicals with links to horrific harm to people and the planet. In 2015, 4 per cent of fossil fuel was used to make plastic and, by 2050, this is predicted to increase to 20 per cent. Even worse, as fossil fuel production continues to soar, so will the profound impacts we already see increase even more.”

The Commission urges that a cap on global plastic production be a defining feature of the Global Plastics Treaty, and that the Treaty continues its focus beyond marine litter to address the impacts of plastics across the entire life cycle, including the many thousands of chemicals incorporated into plastics and the human health impacts. “We have to deal with both what we can see and what we can’t,” said Professor Dunlop.

The Commission found that plastic accounts for an estimated 4-5 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions across its lifecycle, equivalent to emissions from Russia, making it a large-scale contributor to climate change. The study also calculated the health costs for just three specific plastic chemicals in the US alone amounted to $920bn in 2015.

Share Story: