Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet
Despite being one of the most pervasive materials on the planet, plastic and its impact on human health is poorly understood. Human exposure to it grows with increasing plastic production and use. Research into the human health impacts of plastic to date have focused narrowly on specific moments in the plastic lifecycle, from wellhead to refinery, from store shelves to human bodies, and from disposal to ongoing impacts as air pollutants and ocean plastic. Individually, each stage of the plastic lifecycle poses significant risks to human health. Together, the lifecycle impacts of plastic paint an unequivocally toxic picture: plastic threatens human health on a global scale.
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Plastic & Health: The Hidden Costs of a Plastic Planet [English]
- Хуванцар ба Эрүүл мэнд [Mongolian]
Executive Summary:
- English US Letter | English A4
- المواد البلاستيكية والصحة [Arabic]
- 塑料与健康 [Chinese]
- Plastique et santé [French]
- Plastik & Gesundheit [German]
- Пластик и здоровье [Russian]
- El plástico y la salud [Spanish]
Two pager:
Key Graphics:
- Figure 2: Plastic & Health: The Hidden Cost of a Plastic Planet
- Figure 6: Main Plastic Resin Types and Applications in Food Packaging
- Figure 7: Toxic Exposure from Incineration
- Figure 8: Multiple Pathways for Human Exposure to Microplastics Through Seafood
Table of contents:
- Executive Summary
- Chapter 1: Introduction
- Chapter 2: Extraction and Transport
- Health Impacts
- Air Pollution
- Ozone
- Frontline Community Impacts
- Mental Health and Human Rights
- Risks to Children, Infants, and Pregnant Women
- Water
- Pipelines
- Chapter 3: Refining and Manufacture
- Human Health Impacts of Chemicals involved in Plastic Production
- Hazardous Air Pollutants
- Chemical Clusters and Risk of Accidents
- Community Engagement and Access to Information
- External Factors: Extreme Weather Events
- Threats to Workers in the Plastic Industry
- Chapter 4: Consumer Use
- Plastic Particles, Plasticizers, and Other Chemical Additives
- Plasticizers Used in Plastic and Other Consumer Products
- Potential Threats Associated with Accumulated Pollutants on Plastic Particles
- Food Packaging Chemicals
- Human Body Burden
- Routes of Human Exposure to Microplastic Particles
- Drinking Water as a Source of Human Exposure to Microplastics
- Toxicity of Microplastic Particles to Cells and Tissues
- Uptake and Translocation Across the Gut
- Chapter 5: Plastic Waste Management
- Waste-to-Energy
- Waste Incineration Industry Targets Asian Markets for Growth
- Environmental Health Impact of Waste Incineration
- Toxic Emissions from Burning Plastic
- Toxic Byproducts Of Incineration On Land And Water
- Plastic-to-Fuel
- Low Feasibility and Recent Trend of Failures
- Environmental Health Impact
- Other Routes and Unknowns
- Chemical Recycling
- Waste-Based Road and Building Materials
- Chapter 6: Plastic in the Environment
- Ingesting Plastic
- Fish and Shellfish
- Seaweed
- Salt
- Other Food and Drink
- Microplastics in the Food Chain
- Impact on Human Health
- Microplastics and Toxic Chemicals
- Microplastics and the Potential for Disease
- Ingesting Microplastics
- Inhaling Microplastic
- Toxicity of Inhaled Plastic Particles
- Plastic in Agricultural Soils
- Chapter 7: Conclusions and Recommendations
- Known Knowns
- Known Unknowns
- Recommendations