MICROPLASTICS
WHY IN NEWS ?
- A recent review by the Boston College Global Observatory on Planetary Health found that mankind’s patterns of plastic production, use and disposal are just not sustainable.
- They are also “responsible for significant harms to human health as well as for deep societal injustices”.
WHAT ARE MICROPLASTICS ?
- Microplastics, as the name implies, are tiny plastic particles.
- Microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than 5 mm in length, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the European Chemicals Agency.
- Officially, they are defined as plastics less than five millimeters (0.2 inches) in diameter.
- There are two categories of microplastics: primary and secondary:
- Primary microplastics are tiny particles designed for commercial use, such as cosmetics, as well as microfibers shed from clothing and other textiles, such as fishing nets.
- Secondary microplastics are particles that result from the breakdown of larger plastic items, such as water bottles.
- This breakdown is caused by exposure to environmental factors, mainly the sun’s radiation and ocean waves.
DANGERS OF MICROPLASTICS
- Microplastics have been detected in marine organisms from plankton to whales, in commercial seafood, and even in drinking water.
- Alarmingly, standard water treatment facilities cannot remove all traces of microplastics.
- Infact microplastics in the ocean can bind with other harmful chemicals before being ingested by marine organisms.
- The problem with microplastics is that like plastic items of any size they do not readily break down into harmless molecules.
- The main driver of these worsening harms is an exponential and accelerating increase in global plastic production.
- Plastic’s harms are magnified by low rates of recovery and recycling and by the long persistence of plastic waste in the environment.
- Coal-miners, oil and gas-field workers who extract fossil carbon feedstock for plastic production, along with production workers, have been most at risk.
- But get a load of this traces of micro-plastics have recently been detected in the placenta of unborn babies while still in their mothers’ wombs.
- Plastic production workers are at increased risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, brain cancer, breast cancer and decreased fertility.
- Plastic recycling workers have increased rates of cardiovascular disease, toxic metal poisoning, neuropathy, as also lung cancer.
- Microplastics could contribute up to 30% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch polluting the world’s oceans and, in many developed countries, are a bigger source of marine plastic pollution than the visible larger pieces of marine litter, according to a 2017 IUCN report.
SOURCES OF MICROPLASTICS
- Microplastics come from a variety of sources, including from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces.
- In addition, microbeads, a type of microplastic, are very tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added as exfoliants to health and beauty products, such as some cleansers and toothpastes.
- Microplastics arise from the degradation (breakdown) of larger plastic products through natural weathering processes after entering the environment.
- Such sources of secondary microplastics include water and soda bottles, fishing nets, plastic bags, microwave containers, tea bags and tire wear.
- However, microplastics also accumulate in the air and terrestrial ecosystems.
- The existence of microplastics in the environment is often established through aquatic studies.
INDIAN COMPLEXITIES
- Of the 30 most polluted cities in the world, 21 are in India.
- And at least 14 crore people in India breathe air that is at least 10 times or more polluted than the WHO safe limit.
- And 13 of the world’s 20 cities with the highest annual levels of air pollution are in India.
- Sadly, a further 51 per cent of pollution in India is caused by industries, 27 per cent by vehicles, 17 per cent by crop-burning and 5 per cent by other sources.
WHAT CAN BE DONE ?
- Researchers have called for corporate responsibility for plastic production to be enforced globally, with legally binding legislation that addresses the full lifecycle of plastic, from extraction and manufacturing to its end of life.
- Research has also come up with scathing observations that international policies on plastic are fragmented, lack specificity and do not include measurable targets.
- Some researchers have proposed incinerating plastics to use as energy, which is known as energy recovery.
- As opposed to losing the energy from plastics into the atmosphere in landfills, this process turns some of the plastics back into energy that can be used.
- Biodegradation is another possible solution to large amounts of microplastic waste. In this process, microorganisms consume and decompose synthetic polymers by means of enzymes.
- Computer modelling done by The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch foundation, has suggested that collection devices placed nearer to the coasts could remove about 31% of the microplastics in the area.
- In addition, some bacteria have adapted to eat plastic, and some bacteria species have been genetically modified to eat (certain types of) plastics.
INTERNATIONAL INITIATIVES
- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched its “Trash-Free Waters” initiative in 2013 to prevent single-use plastic wastes from ending up in waterways and ultimately the ocean.
- The Clean Oceans Initiative is a project launched in 2018 by the public institutions European Investment Bank, Agence Française de Développement and KfW Entwicklungsbank.
- The goal of the organisations was to provide up to €2 billion in lending, grants and technical assistance until 2023 to develop projects that remove pollution from waterways (with a focus on macroplastics and microplastics) before it reaches the oceans.
- In 2018, China banned the import of recyclables from other countries, forcing those other countries to re-examine their recycling schemes.
WAY FORWARD
- Charles Moore once said: “We humans make waste that nature can’t digest.” Very apt and true, and given the pace of the degradation of our ecosystem and environment, humans themselves won’t be able to digest what the planet is turning into, with its attendant consequences.
- Given the severability of the issue, there must be an urgent and international cooperation to address the menace of microplastics.
SYLLABUS: MAINS,GS-3,ENVIRONMENT
SOURCE: MILLENIUM POST
