Plastic is polluting our bodies

A guest blog by Karine Nohr

I have written about plastics in this column before, and I thought that I knew quite a lot about the dangers of plastic pollution, but a recent interview that I listened to, with Gynaecologist Dr Jane van Dis, brought me up short. 

In my early medical career, I too worked as a gynaecologist, before changing to General Practice. Gynaecologists alongside midwives look after pregnant mums and deliver their babies, and I witnessed the birth of hundreds of little Sheffielders. This profoundly-felt event could also be highly stressful, as things can go wrong very quickly. But the concern that contemporary health staff have to now take into account, compared to my time as a young doctor, is the poisoning of patients by pollutants.  So listening to how Jane had come to have a special interest in Plastics drew me in. What Jane proceeded to expand upon, was shocking. 

Babies are now being polluted with plastics in their bodies even before they emerge into the World. These plastics often contain chemicals that have not been properly tested, nor proven to be safe. These chemicals are leaching into our bodies. There are now 10,000 to 12,000 chemicals that are added to plastics. Plastic levels in infants are now observed to be greater than in their parents.  These plastics are toxic to the body and can create all manner of harm, from cell damage to DNA damage to endocrine (gland) disruption, to heart disease, to cancer. How has this been allowed to happen, under our watch, without challenge? What on earth are we doing to our children?

A recent study of deceased people’s brains confirmed the findings of a similar study 8 years ago showing that not only do the brains of deceased people contain plastic, but that this has increased by 50% in 8 years.  Moreover, the brains of those with dementia had 5 to 10 times more plastic than those of the brains of people who didn’t suffer from dementia.

Plastics are synthetic products derived from fossil fuels that have massively facilitated efficient food packaging. But this is hugely problematic, such as the ever-increasing piles of plastic waste on both land and at sea. The insidious introduction of plastics to all of our lives has increased year on year. This has contributed to pollution levels such that we have now got to the point where pollution (such as air, food, and water) is the leading cause of premature deaths globally, with 90% of these occurring in low and middle-income countries, and plastics are a major contribution to the pollution. We ignore the effects of our society’s consumption of products, many plastic or fossil fuel-based,  that are the cause of pollution on the lives of others. The global plastic market is increasing by over 4% each year, set to increase by another 50% by 2050.   There are very few safeguards to prevent companies from maximising this trend, with no incentives to be responsible for either harm caused by plastics or their disposal.

 Where are the health warnings that the plastic-wrapped food is a potential serious threat to your Health? Why, when going food shopping, is it becoming increasingly challenging to avoid plastic? 

Plastics hang around for a long time. Known as ‘forever chemicals’, they can take many hundreds of years to degrade. So our little bit of convenience of their use is leaving behind a toxic trail that could last many centuries and more.

So what can you do about it? 

Avoid plastics whenever you can, Don’t buy plastic bottles of drink. Try to have an aluminium water bottle for ‘drinking on the go’. Use tap water. Sheffield tap water tastes good! (Have you tasted London tap water? Yuk).

If you can, try not to buy your food wrapped in plastic. Thank the food retailers for any attempts to address the plastic problem, and make complaints to those that don’t. Use your economic power as a consumer to purchase accordingly. 

Don’t heat your food in a plastic container in the microwave. (Acid and heat massively accelerate the leakage of plastics in food. 4 minutes of heating your food in the microwave releases 4 million particles of plastic into the food). Don’t heat formula milk in plastic in the microwave. Don’t heat frozen dinners in plastic containers in the microwave.

Remember that tins of vegetables are lined with plastic.

And if possible, make your own food, don’t buy pre-prepared food, which in addition to being wrapped in plastic, is usually ultra-processed, and bad for your health.

The biggest amount of plastic that we absorb is from air pollution from the plastics coming off tyres. So really think about whether you need to use a car. Consider alternative transport methods, such as walking, cycling, and public transport, if you possibly can. 

And consider donating to organisations (such as Greenpeace: see the Ditch Dove campaign here) who are trying to raise these issues in the political arena.

See also Sheffield Action on Plastic for more ideas.