PLASTICS NANOPLASTICS

Nuclear War could wipe out a lot of us at once. AI could eventually replace us all. Genetic Engineering could create superbeings who wouldn’t want us around. Climate Change can heat up the planet beyond human ability to survive.

But what about plastics, whose wonders (versatility, durability, cost-effectiveness, and a vast array of uses) make it widely used in packaging, healthcare, electronics, consumer goods, construction, and industrial applications. Are plastics a danger to humanity?

POLLUTION: Plastic pollution is a severe environmental problem. Plastic accumulates in the Earth’s environment, negatively impacting ecosystems, wildlife, and human health. It arises from the production, use, and disposal of items, particularly single-use plastics. The durability of plastics make it a pollution menace, harming sea life and creating enormous floating islands like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (twice the size of Texas). Every step of plastic production and disposal adds to Global Warming.

But the more worrisome danger is from manmade microplastics and the breakdown of plastics into nanoplastics. The word nanoplastics is so new, Spellcheck hasn’t caught up yet. Are these tiny plastics really an existential threat? Since they have now been observed to penetrate all parts of the human body, they might very well cause our extinction.

Most of us are aware that plastics do not break down and disappear, the way other substances do, in a given number of years or centuries. They never disappear, they just get smaller and smaller, becoming tiny microplastics, and invisible nanoplastics. Some microplastics and nanoplastics are formed by the continuous breaking down of larger pieces–think debris from tire wear. Other microplastics have been made small intentionally for addition to detergents, paints, medicines, pesticides, and cosmetic microbeads used in facial scrubs.

HEALTH RISKS: We now have nanoplastics in our hearts, our brains, and our blood. They are in clouds, rain and snow. We know they are in bees’ brains, interfering with their dance that tells where the flowers are. About 30% of our food source could disappear without the work bees do.

There is developing evidence that nanoplastics are involved in heart attacks. But most frightening of all, nanoplastics are in semen. And nobody can tell us what that means for the continuation of the human race. One study showed, “Oral exposure to polystyrene nanoplastics reduced male fertility and even caused male infertility by inducing testicular and sperm toxicities in mice.”

What about humans? Microplastic pollution has been found in all 40 human semen samples tested in one study. The 40 semen samples were from healthy men undergoing premarital health assessments in Jinan, China. Another recent study found microplastics in the semen of six out of 10 healthy young men in Italy.” Researchers say understanding the potential harm to human reproduction is “imperative”.