More than 4,000 plastic chemicals are hazardous, report finds
More than 4,000 plastic chemicals are hazardous, report finds
Year-long effort compiles comprehensive database of chemicals in plastics.
The report was released on 14 March, in time for the next round of negotiations for a United Nations treaty on global plastic pollution. Scientists have been campaigning for the treaty, which deals with all aspects of plastic production and waste management, to include a list of plastic polymers and chemicals of concern — some of which are known to leach into food, water and the environment, with impacts for human and ecosystem health.
It’s unclear whether the plastics treaty will be completed in December. So far, the negotiations have been hampered by a few petrochemical states that are resisting strong regulation of plastics production.
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Wait, out of how many? 4,000 sounds like a lot and if it's out of 4,100 it IS a lot.
If it's out of 400,000... eh... not so much.
Edit Out of 16,000, but get this...
"The group also discovered that hazard data were unavailable for more than 10,000 chemicals, and for more than 9,000 there was no publicly available information about which plastics they are used in."
10,000 we don't know, and 9,000 we don't know what plastics they are in.
Suddenly the MSDS for my toner bottles reading "Contents partially unknown" makes more sense.
Suddenly the MSDS for my toner bottles reading "Contents partially unknown" makes more sense.
Incredible. As a non-scientist, makes me think we are destined to myriad of inexplicable chronic diseases.
Plastic is unfortunately dozens of orders of magnitude worse than lead. Lead was easily replaceable, and the level of contamination rapidly dropped in just a couple of decades of stopping its use.
Plastics contain tens of thousands of molecular variants, 99.99% of which have not been studied long term, are not naturally occurring, and will take thousands of years to (naturally) decompose to a safe or benign state. They are fossil fuel based, and heavily engrained throughout society. They can't simply or easily be "replaced".
🙈
Yikes