Impacts of plastics on the environment and climate

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The United Nations coined the term "triple planetary crisis" to describe the interconnected global crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution. The UN uses this term to emphasize the interdependence and mutual impact of these crises on ecosystems, societies and economies.

UFZ researchers work in a wide range of fields from hydrology, toxicology, microbiology, environmental chemistry to social sciences and are part of the UFZ competence cluster for microplastics. A total of nineteen thousand scientific studies were reviewed and the findings are very clear. Almost seventeen and a half thousand studies deal with the negative effects of plastics and related chemicals on environmental pollution. Only 1,279 studies also consider impacts on climate change and a paltry 652 focus on impacts on biodiversity.

Since the 1950s, 9,200 million tons of plastic have been produced worldwide. Currently only 2900 million tons of this amount are used. 5300 million tons ended up in landfills and 1000 million tons were incinerated. It is worth noting that around 1750 to 2500 million tons of plastic is mismanaged. This means that they can leak into the environment unplanned.

Few studies address the effects of plastics on the atmosphere and cryosphere which is the part of the Earth's surface where water occurs as snow or ice. Other gaps in studies relate to nanoplastics. The chemical composition of plastics is also a big unknown, as they contain many added chemicals in addition to the polymer. To date, approximately 640 million tons of additive chemicals have been added to plastics.

Research on the impact of plastics on climate change is also limited. A big unknown is e.g. to what extent greenhouse gas emissions are caused by the production of plastics. It's also not clear how plastics affect biochemical cycles in the global oceans or how they change albedo, the amount of sunlight reflected back by the Earth's surface.

Scientists now know that plastics contain approximately sixteen thousand chemicals, and of these, 4,200 are persistent in the environment. They accumulate in living organisms and are transported over long distances or pose a potential hazard. Current regulations cover very few of these chemicals.

The issue of plastics is being discussed these days at the negotiations on the UN global treaty on plastics, which is being held until December 1st in Busan. Finally a global agreement should be adopted with goals including reducing the production of new plastics and reducing hazardous chemicals from plastics.

Source:Sciencedaily/Editorial