The report was released on 14 March, in time for the next round of negotiations for a United Nations treaty on global plastic pollution. Scientists have been campaigning for the treaty, which deals with all aspects of plastic production and waste management, to include a list of plastic polymers and chemicals of concern — some of which are known to leach into food, water and the environment, with impacts for human and ecosystem health.
It’s unclear whether the plastics treaty will be completed in December. So far, the negotiations have been hampered by a few petrochemical states that are resisting strong regulation of plastics production.
Plastic is unfortunately dozens of orders of magnitude worse than lead. Lead was easily replaceable, and the level of contamination rapidly dropped in just a couple of decades of stopping its use.
Plastics contain tens of thousands of molecular variants, 99.99% of which have not been studied long term, are not naturally occurring, and will take thousands of years to (naturally) decompose to a safe or benign state. They are fossil fuel based, and heavily engrained throughout society. They can’t simply or easily be “replaced”.
🙈
Yikes