5/8/2025–|Last update: 10:03 (Mecca time)
A new study warned that plastic has become a grave, increasingly and well -known threat to human health and planet. She concluded that the world is going through a “plastic crisis”, which causes diseases and deaths from childhood to aging, as 3 chemicals in it alone cause health damages that exceed 1.5 trillion dollars annually.
The study – which was published in the “Lancet” medical journal – indicated that the plastic exposes the human and the planet at all stage, starting from extracting fossil fuels made of it, to its production, use and disposal.
This leads to air pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals, and the leakage of fine plastic particles to the body. Rather, plastic pollution may enhance the multiplication of mosquitoes that transmit diseases, as the water combined in the plastic thrown into its waste is provided with good reproductive environments.
In general, plastic is seen as a very important flexible material for industry and cheap, but scientists assert that it is costly when adding the cost of health damage.
The health damage caused by only 3 plastic chemicals has been estimated, which are dual -chlorine, vinole A, and ethylene hydrochloride (DeHP) in 38 countries at about $ 1.5 trillion annually.
The crisis engine appears to be the huge acceleration in plastic production, which has increased by more than 200 times since 1950, and is scheduled to double about 3 times again, to reach more than a billion tons annually by 2060.
While plastic has many important uses, the fastest increase in the production of monochrome plastic, such as beverage bottles and fast food containers.
As a result, plastic pollution increased sharply, as the world produces 450 million tons of plastic annually, half of which is used for one time, recycled less than 10%, and plastic waste spreads from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest trench in the Pacific Ocean, a Mariana Trench.
Recycling and final solution
The 5 and perhaps last round of negotiations in Geneva aims to reach a global treaty binding on plastic to address the crisis. The talks were a sharp dispute between more than 100 countries that support a maximum plastic production, countries producing fossil fuel, companies and pressure groups that oppose the proposal.
Oil companies and plastic industry argue with the need to focus on recycling plastic only, not to reduce production.
However, unlike paper, glass, steel and aluminum, the chemically complex plastic can not be recycled easily, and the new study confirmed that “it is now clear that the world cannot get rid of the plastic pollution crisis through recycling.”
More than 98% of plastic of fossil oil, gas and coal is made, and the intense energy consumption process contributes to the exacerbation of the climate crisis, by launching the equivalent of two billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, more than the emissions of Russia, the fourth largest polluted in the world.
Plastic production also causes air pollution, as it burns more than half of the uninhabited plastic waste in the open air, according to the study, as well as pollution of soil, forests and oceans and increased its warming, and weakening its role in the absorption of carbon.
More than 16,000 chemicals are used in plastic, including fillings, dyes, flame inhibitors and stabilizers, and the study indicated that many plastic chemicals are linked to health effects in all stages of human life, but there is a decrease in transparency regarding the chemicals found in plastic.
The study also found that fetuses, infants and young children were more likely to damage to plastic, as exposure was associated with increased risks of miscarriage, premature birth, birth defects, poor lung growth, children’s cancer, and fertility problems later.
Plastic waste is often decomposed into accurate and nanoparticles, the human body enters through water, food and breathing, and these molecules have been found in the blood, brains, mother milk, placenta, semen and bone marrow.
The effect of these fine particles on human health is still largely unknown, but some studies have linked them to strokes, heart attacks and other diseases.