Microplastics are defined by the NOAA as fragments of any type of plastic less than 5mm in length. While the size of microplastics may make them seem insignificant, they can have a huge impact on human health and the environment.
Microplastics come from a variety of sources, such as cigarette fibres, textiles, industrial processes, or even facial exfoliators in the forms of tiny micro beads. One cleanser can contain up to 360,000 microbeads! A harmful side effect of their size is that microplastics cannot currently be captured through wastewater treatment and so are flushing straight into the ocean. Plastic production is only growing—in 2019 around 368 million metric tonnes of plastic was produced, compared to 250 tonnes in 2009. The average person living in western Europe today consumes 100kg tonnes of plastic every year—as well as the majority of this being disposed of in environmentally harmful ways, many break down to create microplastics which enter the surrounding environment. Around 8% the Great Pacific Garbage Patch’s total mass (estimated at 45-129 thousand tonnes of plastic) is made up by microplastics. However, despite being only 8% of the mass, it makes up around 94% of the pieces, estimated at a gigantic 1.8 trillion.
Microplastics can also be very harmful to sea life. They have the ability to damage marine ecosystems and ingestion of microplastics by sea creatures can lead to their death. In some cases, fish have mistaken microplastics for their natural food source, eat it instead of their natural food stock and starve to death as a result. Plastic particles have been found in larger animals such as whales, turtles, and seabirds. These animals have ingested microplastics but cannot digest them, leading to a plastic build-up in their digestive tracks. Smaller microplastics can also be toxic to algae, which could have catastrophic environmental consequences as algae produces around 30-50% of the world’s oxygen. If the current trends of plastic pollution continue in our oceans its ability to be a carbon sink could drop drastically, potentially increasing the rate of global warming and adding to the enhanced greenhouse effect. Microplastics, while being bad for the environment, also pose a huge risk to human health. Several in vitro studies have indicated that ingesting or inhaling microplastics can be toxic for the recipient, and can lead to cellular damage, immune reactions, and other serious side effects. Humans can ingest microplastics from a variety of sources, from eating fish to eating salt. When tested single use water bottles contained between 2-44 microplastics per litre, and 600 microplastics per kilogram.
The increasing prevalence of microplastics on a global scale is having harmful effects on ecosystems, marine life, and human health. While the future may seem bleak, positive change is still happening. After a campaign by Greenpeace, the UK banned micro beads in wash off personal care products. This has prevented millions of plastic particles from entering our oceans every year. This shows the importance of passing laws that restrict plastic in everyday life, especially textiles which inevitably sheds microplastics every wash. In that vein, please sign the petition below to ban the most polluting fibres from UK imports.
