Why it matters

Microplastic unfantastic

17th November 2007

Plastic garbage isn't just a waste of resources - it creates tiny Trojan horses that piggyback dangerous chemicals into our own bodies

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The planet’s oceans are full of plastic trash that has broken down into microscopic particles. These “microplastics” are impossible to clean up. And now research suggests they act like tiny Trojan horses as well, carrying toxic chemicals that animals inadvertently swallow. Scientists at the University of Plymouth found that microplastics soaked up far more phenanthrene (a common marine pollutant) than samples of normal sand – and when the toxic microplastics were added to tanks of marine worms, the concentration of phenanthrene in their tissues shot up 80 per cent.

Professor Richard Thompson, who worked on the study with a team of scientists at Plymouth, had long suspected that animals might ingest toxic chemicals along with mouthfuls of microplastics. Now, he has proof. But the full environmental impact has yet to be researched, along with whether these microplastics and their toxic passengers could work their way up the food chain, right up to humans, as worms and other small creatures are eaten by predators.

The answer is not to ban plastics outright, Prof. Thompson says. Lightweight, durable and sterile, they are essential for modern medicine and technology. “But what do we do with most of the plastic we produce? Forty per cent of it is used to make plastic packaging, which is used once and then discarded. The long-term solution is to be smarter about our use of plastics.”

Published in The Green Report in The Globe and Mail

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• Tags:
• Marine Pollution
• Plastics

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