«There are many more unregulated substances that we simply don't know about.»
The number of toxic chemicals in plastic is in the thousands, most of them unregulated, a new report finds. “Life in plastic; “It’s fantastic,” the song goes, but in reality, plastics and the chemicals used to create them are increasingly linked to numerous harmful effects on human health and the environment. And with new plastics chemicals constantly coming onto the market, regulators and policymakers are finding it difficult to determine the extent of the problem.
Now, as CNN reports, for the first time, researchers have pulled together scientific and regulatory data to create a database of all known chemicals used in the production of plastics.
It's a staggering number: 16,000 plastic chemicals, and According to the authors, at least 4,200 of them are considered “particularly dangerous.” for human health and the environment.
“Only 980 of these highly hazardous chemicals are regulated by agencies around the world, leaving us with 3,600 chemicals that are unregulated— and these are just the known chemicals,” said Martin Wagner, first author and project director of the PlastChem report released Thursday.
“There are many more unregulated chemicals that we simply have no idea about may be dangerous to our own health or the environment,” said Wagner, an associate professor of biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
The report is important, said pediatrician and biology professor Dr. Philip Landrigan, director of the Program on Global Public Health and the Common Good and the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College.
“It is the most comprehensive catalog of chemicals found in plastics «that I have seen to date,» said Landrigan, who was not involved in the report.
Landrigan, at the same time, was the lead author of the large-scale project of the Minderu Commission – Monaco Plastics and Human Health, a global consortium of scientists, health officials and policy analysts tasked with tracking plastics from creation to the final product.
In its March 2023 report, the consortium determined that “plastics cause harm to human health at every single stage of the plastic life cycle,” Landrigan said.
“This new report underscores what we have found: plastics pose a very real threat to human health,” he added. “Plastics and the chemicals they contain require much greater regulation than has been the case thus far.”
Matt Seaholm, president and CEO of the Plastics Industry Association, told CNN that “plastic as a material continues to provide safety, protection and efficiency, as well as recyclability. Chemicals are chemicals, and policies should be developed that apply to all of them. Trying to focus solely on "chemicals for plastics" is fraught with redundancy and a narrow vision of politics”.
Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Chemistry Council, told CNN that «unfortunately, today's report seeks to promote a concept of hazard that ignores real-world exposure and paints an incomplete picture for regulators and the public.» This contrasts with the risk assessments used to justify the most effective chemical management laws.
The PlastChem Report outlines a systematic approach to identifying and prioritizing chemicals of concern that can be used by agencies and regulators around the world, including those attending the April meeting of the International Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution. The committee is part of the United Nations Environment Programme, which has committed to developing a Global Plastics Pact among 175 countries by the end of 2024.
“The most important criterion we used is toxicity,” says Wagner. — Many of these chemicals are known to be highly toxic to human health or the environment. They are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction. Some have specific organ toxicity, typically the liver, since that is where many chemicals are absorbed from the circulation.”
According to Martin Wagner, other chemicals such as phthalates, bisphenols, flame retardants and pesticides are also endocrine disruptors, interfering with the body's hormones and contributing to obesity, low birth weight, gestational diabetes, some cancers, birth defects, and neurodevelopmental disorders.
In addition to toxicity, the report characterizes chemicals of concern by how long they remain in the environment or the human body, Wagner said.
“The chemicals of concern we have identified are also persistent because they do not break down easily in the environment; bioaccumulative, meaning that they accumulate in the body over time; and mobile, meaning they spread easily in drinking water or aquatic environments,” he added.
Scientific studies are often criticized by the plastics industry as being vague or only able to show an association rather than a cause and corollary, due to ethical considerations associated with human experimentation. To allay this concern, the researchers collected data from regulatory agencies around the world, which have already flagged the chemical as potentially dangerous.
“Our report is based not only on scientific evidence in the literature, but also on statements from regulatory agencies that "this chemical is likely to cause cancer or other toxic effects." «This is a fairly conservative approach to identifying plastics of concern,» Wagner said.
Landrigan said using regulatory data in addition to scientific research «adds a whole layer of credibility to the report.»
< p>In the United States, the regulatory process requires evidence of an individual chemical's harm before any action can be taken, CNN notes. Critics of this approach say it allows industry to change a small molecule in the structure of that chemical, essentially sending scientists back to the laboratory to prove that the chemical harms the body in the same way as its predecessor.
«The chemical industry has become very adept at these kinds of baits,» Landrigan said, although all chemicals in this group will have the same biological effects on the body.
Along with many other advocates, the PlastChem report suggests combining similar chemicals substances into groups, which will then be regulated as classes. The report identifies 15 such priority groups, which include such familiar names as bisphenols (BPA and its derivatives); phthalates; per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS); and parabens (preservatives).
While such a grouping would cover about 1,000 of the most toxic chemicals found in plastics, there are still about 2,600 chemicals that still need to be regulated, Wagner said.
In addition to the sheer number of toxic chemicals, the report found that detailed hazard information was missing for more than 10,000 of the 16,000 chemicals. Without this information, advocates say, regulators and the public do not have the data needed to determine whether chemicals may cause harm to humans, wildlife and the environment.
“This report is long overdue. People are exposed to these chemicals every day, highlighting a critical problem where the vast majority have never undergone a hazard or safety assessment,” said Tasha Steuber, senior scientist at the Environmental Working Group, an environmental and health advocacy organization.
< “We will never know the full extent of what this chronic exposure means for our health, but the sheer amount of toxic chemicals used in plastics should be alarming,” said Jane Houlihan, director of research at the Healthy Kids Foundation. ; Bright Futures, an alliance of nonprofits, scientists and donors with a mission to reduce infant exposure to neurotoxic chemicals. She had nothing to do with the new report.