Health Impacts of Plastics: From Production to Disintegration

 The Very Real Health Impacts of Plastics: 

From Production to Disintegration

Organizing for Plastic Alternatives (https://opawebsite.wixsite.com/plasticalternatives) hosted a forum on the emerging research that is beginning to link the omnipresence of single use plastics on July 23, 2024, in Chicago. Professors Gail Prins (UIC) and Timothy Hoellein (Loyola University Chicago) spoke to the wide/vast distribution of plastics across our environments (including all of our bodies) as well as the health implications for humans. 

 

Plastics are literally everywhere - in the air we breathe, waters we swim in, water we drink, soil we cultivate, and food we eat. We have known about the problem of plastics for decades (industry kept this nasty truth a secret from us) and have become more and more aware of the environmental consequences from extraction of fossil fuel, production of plastics, distribution, waste and then ultimately breakdown into micro and nano plastic particles. What we didn't know was the dramatic health consequences that medical researchers are beginning to tie to Alzheimer's, colon cancer, and other maladies caused the the myriad toxic chemicals that comprise plastics that we are forced to use on a daily basis. 

We are all plastic people now is a new documentary that presents and discusses the extraordinary impacts that plastics have on human health. Medical researchers are finding that all of us have plastic chemicals in our blood stream, that nano and micros plastics are lodged in our bodies - even in the placenta of new born infants. Forum participants viewed the documentary then engaged in serious discussion about the problem of plastics and, importantly, what we can do to slow this tidal wave.  Yes, more is planned - even a tripling of the production of plastics within the next decades. 

So, we are faced with a question. Is it on the consumer to avoid plastics at all costs or is it on government to regulate these toxins and unnecessary packaging to protect its citizens? Yes, for sure, avoid plastics at all costs now. But even if we are able to make a seismic collective shift in consumption habits, the problem will still be with us and industry will escape unscathed. 

The real work is in organizing to compel government to ban many forms of single use plastics that have become all too common. States and municipalities across the country have banned styrofoam in food products, plastic straw, plastic bags, have implemented bottle bills and extended producer responsibilites laws. It's happening and spreading. Unfortunately, in Illinois none of these things have happened. Yet, groups are organizing and pressing their legislators to begin this important journey. 

Do your part - but join a group to demand regulation of plastics in this country.

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