According to a recent report, plastic products, from food packaging, children's toys to medical equipment... contain more than 16,000 toxic chemicals - Illustration: AFP
The frightening figure was revealed in a recent report, funded by the Norwegian Research Council, which is 3,000 more than the previous estimate by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
According to Ms. Jane Muncke - executive director of the Swiss non-profit Food Packaging Forum, to completely solve the problem of plastic pollution, the world needs to really consider the entire life cycle of plastic and must address the chemical problem.
She said researchers have found hundreds, even thousands, of chemicals from plastic in the human body, and some of them have been linked to health problems because the chemicals in plastic can leach into water and food.
Notably, a quarter of the chemicals identified had no basic information about their chemical nature, and only 6% of the chemicals found in plastics are internationally regulated.
Referring to the impact of plastic waste pollution on human health such as causing reproductive problems and cardiovascular diseases, the report stressed that addressing the plastic waste problem alone is not enough to protect people.
Instead, there is a need for greater transparency about the chemicals – including additives, processing aids and impurities – that go into plastics, including recycled products.
Martin Wagner, the report’s lead author and an environmentalist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, said manufacturers don’t really know how many chemicals are in their products. So without mandatory regulation, he said, there’s no incentive for companies to disclose the chemicals in their plastics.
400 million tons of plastic waste/year
The report comes as government negotiators struggle to craft the first global treaty to tackle the growing problem of plastic pollution, with annual plastic waste reaching 400 million tonnes.
Negotiations on a treaty to combat plastic waste are expected to continue next month in Ottawa, Canada, with the aim of finalizing the pact at a December conference in Busan, South Korea.
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