The Long Life Cycle of Plastics & it’s Environmental & Health Costs
SPEAKERS
Bernice Butler, Shanna Swan, Jane Patton
Bernice Butler
Welcome to Healthy Living Healthy Planet Radio today. We're now in our second season, and more excited than ever to continue to help you explore and understand the unbreakable relationship between your health and the health of the planet. We look at the hottest topics related to our environment, and its sustainability and how they affect your health and wellness. Hear issues like climate change, plastic pollution, extreme weather events, and others. Will meet up with everyday impacts like allergies and asthma, digestive issues and gut health, cancers, lung, and heart issues and more. So, listen in today, as we interview experts for today's episode on the long life cycle of plastics, the environmental and health cost.
Now it's no secret that plastics are not ideal. In some cases, it can take up to almost 500 years for some plastics to break down. And that's like the entire duration of the old Roman Empire. This lifespan of plastic spells big problems for human health and our environment. The ubiquitous marine plastic, for instance, degrades and fragments into micro plastics, which we hear a lot about these days, and the microplastics can seep into the food chain and end up in our bodies. And that can have some significant disrupting effects. So far, much of the research on the impact of plastics on human health has focused on a specific moment in the plastic lifecycle such as the manufacturing process, product testing, or to a great degree disposal or lack thereof. But according to a first of its kind, an international report released on Tuesday, the true toll of these polymers should be calculated looking at the whole entire lifecycle of a plastic products existence, from the wellhead, to the final waste. And that's not often done.
This report, which was authored by the Center for International environmental law, in partnership with six other environmental organizations finds that each of these stages on the plastic lifecycle interacts with others, and all of them interact with the human environment and the human body in multiple, often intersecting ways. Now, while plastic is the material, thanks to its cheap price and convenience, the true cost of plastics has been contributing to climate change and keeping us dependent on fossil fuels by entering our water, air, food supplies, and again seriously jeopardizing our human health throughout this entire lifecycle. And in a recent press release, Graham Forbes, who is the global plastics leader for Greenpeace, has said that this is a very serious problem, again, significantly jeopardizing all of us.
And here today to help us explore and understand this is Jane Patton, and she is with the Center for International Environmental Law, who authored this significant report that we've been talking about. Now, Jane is a senior campaigner with the environmental health team of the Center for International Environmental Law, and she's based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work focuses primarily on global policy regarding the full cycle of plastics or the full lifecycle of plastics since 2011. Jane has been working with communities to address inequality to mitigate harm and increase justice. And in 2015, Jane co-founded No Waste Louisiana, which organizes for waste reduction and community-driven systems or reuse, resale, and repair and supports local groups across Louisiana to resist the onslaught of petrochemical development happening there because Louisiana is petrochemical-central, I don't know one or two behind Texas. And in 2016, Jane transitioned to full-time environmental campaign and coalition-building, serving for two years as a Managing Director of Plastic Pollution Coalition, who was with us last year on this program, before moving to support and lead campaigns, projects and policy work as part of her work for the Break Free from Plastic Movement. Jane serves as interim coordinator for the US arm of the Break Free from Plastic Movement for the global corporate campaigns before joining the team at the Center for International Environmental Law. Jane holds a BA in International Relations and Politics from the University of Essex and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University. So, I think she might be called an expert in particularly the environmental side of plastic pollution. Welcome, Jane, we're so glad you could be with us today.
Jane Patton
I'm so glad to be here. Thank you.
Bernice Butler
Jane, we want to start out by talking about why are plastic products become so widely used across the US and internationally? And why and how are they harmful to the environment?
Jane Patton
The answer to why they're so widely used is pretty simple. It's because companies wanted them to be widely used plastics originally and became of interest to the oil and gas industry during the World War Two era, when they were experimenting to maximize profit from every stage of the oil refining process. Because refining oil produces a waste product, basically everything that gets filtered out of the crude oil that can't be burned as petroleum or gas. And plastics are made out of that leftover byproduct. So, at the pace that the country at that time was burning through oil and gas, and the pace at which we continue to burn through oil and gas, those corporations realized they could actually make a lot of money if they created a market for this new wonder products called plastic. At that same time, which was around the World War Two era, as I said, consumer goods were originally sold in bulk or in reusable packaging, like metal boxes, or glass bottles. So, the increase in single use packaging came about when companies like Coca Cola and Nestle were actually marketed this lightweight, much cheaper packaging products, which would then allow them to transfer responsibility for those containers onto their customers. So, Coca Cola didn't have to collect their glass bottles anymore. They could sell us their product in a plastic bottle. And then we would have to be responsible for managing that as waste we as individuals, and we as a community as managing it as waste as in waste management locally. And of course, communities had to sell us that lifestyle, they have been cut, corporations had to sell us that lifestyle, there were advertisements that taught people how to throw things away at the time.
Bernice Butler
So, it sounds like the pervasive existence of plastics in our society in our world today was forced upon us for corporate profit, number one, from the petroleum companies to be able to monetize this byproduct of petroleum processing, and then number two, by the consumer goods producers, in order to save them time and money from having to deal with the previous containers that were being used.
Jane Patton
Absolutely. And there's no doubt that plastics make people's lives easier. I mean, I'm a working mom, I know exactly what it means to be able to have plastics around to actually make, you know, my art. My husband and I both work. I know what that means for us to be able to have the ease of use and the ease of living that come with single use plastics. But as you mentioned before, is that report that CL and our partners put together really starts to actually draw out all the things that for many years, we couldn't see. And this is your second question, we didn't see how harmful plastics were. And now we actually know how harmful they are to the environment and to public health. I mean, we make hundreds of corporations make hundreds of millions of tons of plastic a year, and hundreds of millions of tons of plastics are accumulating in our homes, in our streets in landfills, in addition to the 10 or so million tons of plastics. Just 10 million tons that accumulates in the ocean every year. And I'm saying that sarcastically. I hope that comes across on the radio. And you know, when we look at the 400 million tons of plastics that are made every year, almost 50% of those are used as packaging. They're used as single use. And those plastics are a visual blight. They are harmful to communities around the world where they are gathering. But then the space is where we actually make and manufacture plastics. You know a lot of that they turn green fields and in the case of Louisiana wetlands, into these massive industrial edifices that released pollution that destroy what would be scenic landscapes, what would be public space, and they turn it into plastic, which is accumulating everywhere.
Bernice Butler
Welcome back to Healthy Living Healthy Planet radio, to our show today on the long life cycle of plastics, the environmental and health cost. And we're back with Jane Patten with the Center for International Environmental Law. And they just produced a very interesting and widely read report on the impacts of the lifecycle of plastics on our world and its significance. Now Jane, you were explaining to us this lifecycle of plastics, kind of at the beginning of it, at the manufacturing process, and how it just oozes pollutants, and dangers all along that way. And so, I want to now move a little bit from that first part, perhaps to the next part, and then ask you – what are the most pervasive kinds and uses of plastics in terms of the amounts and in terms of the environmental impact?
Jane Patton
Well, corporations produce about, well, just over 400 million tons of plastic a year, globally 400 million tons. And about 50% of that is used as packaging. But plastics also go into everywhere. They go into our cars, they go into our furniture, they go into, you know how we purchase and source our food and water plastics are pervasive throughout our lives. And in terms of environmental impact, it's difficult to separate different kinds of plastics in terms of their environmental impact. It's a whole suite of impacts that the entire process has. You know, sometimes you hear people talk about polyethylene, or polypropylene – these are the most common types of plastics. We encounter those polyethylene …mostly it’s, I mean, it's the basis of soda bottles, water bottles, is also the basis of polyester, which I have this polyester wrap wrapped around me while we're talking. Okay, and then things like polypropylene or like yogurt tubs. And this is these are the consumer plastics that we're used to seeing in the grocery store. But they're also the kinds of plastics that are that are tables and computers and cars and other durable goods that are not just single use are also made out of plastics like that.
Bernice Butler
I'm glad you put that as you did. They are all so pervasive. You really can't divide them out. So, let's stay on the subject though, in terms of how long they last. And then the other thing that we hear so much about and which seems to be maybe more pervasive, or certainly more harmful, is microplastics.
Jane Patton
Microplastics are pervasive everywhere. They're present in the production of plastics. There's no way to make plastics without producing microplastics because they're literally transported like little plastic beads. That's how the resin once it gets made, gets transported to Coca Cola and make bottles out of it. It comes in the form of little, tiny beads that count as microplastics. Okay, we're dealing with those in the waterways all over South Louisiana and Texas. There was recently a judgment against a plastics producer Formosa Plastics Corporation for consistently dumping in their rain, water and wastewater plastics into Lavaca Bay outside of plant comfort Texas, I mean, this is unavoidable in the production process. But then we also see those microplastics you know, 93% of water samples those tap water and bottled water above 85% found microplastics are microfibers in our drinking water. And that's global. That's not just in the United States, although it's that high in the US as well.
Bernice Butler
The microplastics are the raw material for the plastic containers and things that we use. But they are also out there in the environment all around us. Is it correct to say that as I look out into my yard, or as I sit in my chair, that I might be losing in microplastics? Or that they are all around me? I want people to have a sense that they understand really what a micro plastic is. We know micro it's little plastic.
Jane Patton
That's such a good question. Many plastics come into very different forms. And one of them is what we call primary microplastics, intentionally created or added microplastics things like pellets, things like the microbeads that people hear about, which are now against the law in United States, but are still in personal care products around the world. Little, tiny pieces of plastic that are intentionally put in our consumer products.
Bernice Butler
Why some when it was legal? Why was that done?
Jane Patton
They do help with cleaning your face. They're an abrasive. Yeah, so all the things that, like, build themselves as I can't think of the word, but build themselves as like sloughing off dead horses. Yeah, a lot of those were actually little, tiny microplastics. So, we were then washing down the drain into the water system. And thankfully, that is there is now a microbiome ban in the United States, thanks to the hard work of advocates for a long time, and there's push for there to be microbeads banned internationally. But that's still in the works. So that was there. But what about exactly, and usually you can see those microbeads. But when it comes to micro plastics, like what you're talking about in the air, and every time for instance, I move this polyester wrap that I'm wearing, it releases tiny little fibers that look like dusts, but because they're made out of polyester, they are actually microplastics, they are micro fibers, and I am breathing them in all day long while I am wearing this wrap, while I'm sitting in front of my computer, while my chair in the corner, my if my dog brushes against it, and it releases fibers, those fibers are made of plastics, and they're in the air. And so that's what I mean by them being pervasive and everywhere. They end up in our water because we wash our clothes and they get, you know, washed into the water system and they settle on the ground and the rainwater picks them up. I mean, they're everywhere. And those microplastics are created by essentially shedding of larger plastics, the erosion in the wind erosion from the weather, just, you know, erosion from where, and they end up in the air. One of the actually most common sources of microplastics in the environment is tires, car tires, because they shed as you know, every time you run the tire on the road, it goes away.
Bernice Butler
Yes, exactly. So microplastics in our life in our society are really unavoidable. And Shannon will talk to us later, I have to think that they build up, we probably excrete some of them. But I still have to think that they do indeed build up. So, I want to move a little bit now before we have to go to something that last year, when we were with the people from the Plastic Pollution Coalition, that I found out that there's been a myth perpetrated. And I want to find out from whom, who started it, that we're getting rid of this by recycling. Talk to us about that, Jane.
Jane Patton
Well, I think it's fairly common knowledge at this point, the study that came out several years ago that showed that actually only about 9% of plastics that we've made have ever been recycled. And those recycling rates are going down. The United States is actually this year announcing an 8% recycled plastic rate. And that's if you count everything we shipped overseas as being actually recycled, which is a big if, if you ask me. And who is it perpetuated by? I'm going to go back to my first answer to your first question, which is, corporations sold us business, you know, when their plastics started accumulating in the environment and in the 1970s. And it became a visible issue and people started being concerned about it. They said, I remember “No, we're going to collect them and recycle them. It's going to be great.” And they sold us this campaign. They sold it in, in privately funded advertisements. They sold it in in privately funded nonprofits that look like they're doing great work nonprofits, like keep America beautiful. I mean, their primary goal was to sell this idea of recycling. And what we've seen now is the levels of plastic that we are making, the amount of plastic we're making every year are nowhere near the amount of recycling and waste management technology we would need to take care of them all. And the investment in new plastic production. We're talking about over 200 billion in dollars being invested in new plastic production, just over the next few years, largely in the United States, that's just the number we know, in the United States 200 billion was the investment in recycling. They just doubled it to a billion. It's nowhere near where we need to be.
Bernice Butler
It really isn't. And then there's the other issue that I gleaned from our conversation today. Let's say if you could recycle half the plastic here in North Texas, then what are you going to do with it? Is there any such thing as a biodegradable plastic? Is there some smart person working on that right now?
Jane Patton
I'm sure there are lots of very smart, very well, industry-paid people working on that question right now. But there is not a clear definition of what biodegradability is. There is definitely, right now not any plastics that I would consider biodegradable, and even the plastics as the industry does try to label as such, you know, they might be compostable. But where is there a plastic composting facility anywhere near here. And just because they do compost doesn't mean they're actually helpful for the compost pile. They're not nutritive, they don't actually provide back to the soil in ways that we need them to.
Bernice Butler
Yes, on composting them we just talked about, it has a long life cycle.
Jane Patton
Yes, it still takes too long to break down. And as I mentioned, we have nowhere near the facilities to be able to take even half the plastics in North Texas. But I think the core thing that I keep coming back to and I hope you'll talk more about this on the next segment, is if the plastics you are recycling are toxic, and made of toxic additives, you are just creating a cycle for these toxics to be put back and back and back and back again, into our bodies into our homes. And if recycling itself is toxic, then it is not a solution.
Bernice Butler
And that's my question. Last thing before we have to go, are all plastics toxic?
Jane Patton
That is a very complicated question to answer, most of which are for legal reasons above my paygrade. But from where I'm sitting, the way that we right now produce, manage and use plastics is unavoidably toxic, and it is wildly unjustifiable, to ask community, to require communities to bear that burden.
Bernice Butler
Exactly. Thank you so much, Jane, I really appreciate you have really educated us and made us smarter on the subject and primed us all up to here on the other side of it, because our goal is that people be sensitized. They will understand this and realize, “I have to act because this is not good for my health, or the health of the planet on which I live.” Thank you so much. We've been with Jane Patton, with the Center for International Environmental Law. And we appreciate it and look forward to having you back again. We'll be right back on the other side of the break to talk more about the long life cycles of plastic from the health perspective with Shanna Swan. Thank you.
Bernice Butler
Welcome back to Healthy Living Healthy Planet Radio. Today, we're back with part two of our show on the long life cycle of plastics, the environmental and health cost. And we're now going to talk more about the health perspective. Indeed, plastic pollution may actually be an existential threat. And shifting plastics away from one area of exposure can end up exacerbating existing disparities.
For instance, let's say you don't want plastics to end up in the ocean, so you decide to dispose them by burning them. Those serums create new types of harmful chemical exposures such as toxic air emissions, ash or even wastewater. To be sure some folks will have fewer microplastics, which we just talked about earlier, in our show. Some will have fewer microplastics in their seafood, but now the people living near incinerators when you're burning plastics to get rid of them, and of course, that's going to be primarily low-income communities and communities of color, then they will bear the brunt of that noxious witch's brew and odor from the burning, so the picture can get pretty grim. Humans are exposed to a wide variety of toxic chemicals and microplastics along the plastic lifecycle, through inhalation, through ingestion, and direct contact the skin and according to the report that was done by CIEL. Health problems associated with plastics include numerous forms of cancers, neurological, reproductive and developmental toxicity, as well as diabetes, several organ malfunctions and impact on eyes and skin and particular, note and often underreported and under realized is the effects of plastic pollution on our reproductive health.
And here today to help us unpack some of this, and probably just a tip of it because it's so much, is Shanna Swan, PhD. Shanna is an award-winning scientist based at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health in New York City. And she is one of the leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists in the world. Shanna has published more than 200 scientific papers and has been featured in extensive media coverage around the world. Her appearances include ABC News, NBC Nightly News, 60 minutes, CBS News, PBS, NPR, and many more. And she's also been in leading magazines and newspapers, including Newsweek, The Washington Post, USA Today, Time and The Guardian. And now us shadow has worked for over 25 years to understand the threats posed by chemicals to our environment and our health. And when necessary, she's worked to develop new paradigms to assess these risks of most concern, though, to other chemicals that our bodies can confuse with our own hormones. And these are what are called the endocrine disrupting chemicals. Shanna has a soon-to-be released book titled Countdown. And it's all about the declines in our reproductive health as a result of the impacts of environmental pollution. Welcome, Shanna. We're so glad that you could join us today.
Shanna Swan
Thank you, Bernice. I'm really pleased to be here and join you on this important discussion.
Bernice Butler
Thank you. Before we get started into most of our questions, can you tell us about why your book is titled Countdown? I'm very curious, because I've been reviewing a brief on a major climate change report called “Countdown on Climate Change in Health.”” And the countdown there is related to 2030 when it seems the earth will reach a crucial threshold as it relates to global warming, a lot of which we're already beginning to see. But your countdown is different. Tell us about that.
Shanna Swan
So, our countdown is different. First of all, it's spelled differently. It's two words. And that's important because it's about count sperm count, which is the canary in the coal mine, if you will, that started this whole process made us aware of this process. So, the book isn't just about sperm declining, because that's a signal for lots of other things that are declining. But we are worried about its decline. And that's the down part. And also, count down is a waiting, anticipation of that point at which our species is going to be severely threatened if they're not already. So, it has double meaning.
Bernice Butler
Double entendre. But you know what, both titles and both pieces of work are extremely important. And what they do have in common, is our steady and swift march to something that is harmful to our health and our environment, as a result of climate change, and various environmental impact. So, they have that in common, like “It's coming, folks, it's coming for all of us.””
Shanna Swan
That's right.
Bernice Butler
Shanna, in our previous segment, I think we were really able to dissect and impress upon folks, how long and how very pervasive plastics are in our culture, our society, our world, from the environmental standpoint. And now you've been studying what they do to our health for over 25 years. Will you tell us more about this? Why should people care about what plastics are doing to our health? Why is it important? Why should they care?
Shanna Swan
They should care because of their own health, they should care because of their children's health. And they should care about the health of future generations, because the damage that these chemicals due to our bodies can be passed on to future generations. So, we should also care because of what's happening to our species. We're not alone. It's happening to every species on the planet, probably. So, what is this thing that's happening? Well, what's happening is that chemicals, in plastic and in other manmade products are having are being produced and entering our body with the ability to interfere with our body's natural hormones. Why is that important? Our body depends on hormones, to regulate and to communicate every aspect of our living and development, everything of our biological process. So, if we're going to interfere, say with estrogen or with testosterone, you can imagine, you know, you need us that to keep your going. So, in a lot of ways, and if you're going to interfere with that, so that we have maybe less testosterone, which we've seen in the world. Testosterone was going down, we might have lower sperm count, which we've seen in the world. And that may interfere with, say, a woman's ability to conceive, which is also becoming more difficult. She may be having much more miscarriages, which we're also seeing, and all of these things are marching to the same tune, they are occurring at the rate of about 1% per year. And this has been going on since the introduction of plastics into our environment. Now, that's just correlation. That's not causation. So, we've gone way beyond that. And that's what my studies over the past 25 years have done.
Bernice Butler
Indeed, it does sound existential. That sounds like this scenario of the Handmaidens Tale is not really so far-fetched. And one more question on that, Shanna, is that... I guess I am concerned or surprised that we don't often hear more about the hormonal impacts because this is big, you know, like you said, hormones affect everything. And if plastics have the ability to send our hormones awry, I heard that you can have something happening with the stars and the sun, and it creates this magnetic pull on the earth that runs everything haywire. Right? And it sounds like that's the effect potentially with our hormones.
Shanna Swan
Yes. And I just want to point out that the there's no time more sensitive for hormonal development than in the womb. So, if you think about those little, miniscule cells, developing rapidly using hormones to guide that development, we are in trouble when we're interfering with that hormone process. And that's what's happened.
Bernice Butler
What is the evidence or statistics that we're seeing that, that it's harming the womb to things that it's harming? In Vitro? And it's dealing with? I don't know if the word is sexual development or lack thereof.
Shanna Swan
Okay. So, in our studies, we've shown that chemicals in plastic, have the ability to interfere with particularly male development, sexual development. And that, you know, is maybe not bad for one individual, that’s extreme. But when you put the whole population together, you see everything being a little worse, you see the genitals being a little different. You see, men having lower sperm count, you see fertility rates going down. It adds up to a very big picture, even though the impact on one person may not be that great. So, fertility rates are declining everywhere in the world. And in some countries, they are very dangerously low that we need about 2.1 children per couple to replace ourselves. And now the rate is in some countries as low as 1.2 in the United States is about 1.7. This means that we will not be sustaining the population over the long haul.
Bernice Butler
Welcome back to Healthy Living Healthy Planet Radio. We're back with Part Two of our show today on the long life cycle of plastics, the environmental and health cost, and we're talking to Dr. Shanna Swan, who's helping us understand this more from the health perspective. Now Shanna, you were telling us the pervasiveness of the disruption of our hormones of these plastics in our environment? Is there any one or type of plastic that's more pervasive than the other as it relates to this hormone disruption?
Shanna Swan
A class of plastics that I'm especially concerned about are those that make us exhaust, is in rubber tubing or rubber duckies. And that those are called the salad since a big mouthful. But, um, they have been around for a long time. And there are lots of them. And there are lots of them in our bodies right now. And they have the ability to interfere with the body's hormones. So that's my main concern. I'm also concerned about the females, especially this thing away that a lot of people have heard about, that makes plastic card, makes those nice hard water bottles and baby bottles. But it gives off something that's actually interferes with our body's hormones, as well.
Bernice Butler
And what you just described in my mind is the plastics that I most use, and most of us use most often every day.
Shanna Swan
That's correct.
Bernice Butler
For the soft bottles or containers and the little tubs and the things that we buy the takeout and the to go food, and those are all around us.
Shanna Swan
Yes.
Bernice Butler
I've also heard and read that a lot of the issue is to the things that are added to a lot of these plastic products to keep the plastics bound together. And that it really gets to be a nasty, obnoxious, dangerous process when you are heating, plastic containers, not just about that.
Shanna Swan
Yeah, we're not obviously going to chew on the containers. But it turns out that these chemicals are not tightly bound to the polymer they're introduced to, because they have nice properties. And they make it soft or hard. But then when the food is in the container, they these chemicals, particularly if the food is warm, by the way, then these chemicals will leave the matrix of the plastic and enter into the food. And that food will get into us and of course, into our bodies. So that's there, don't stay in the containers too long. They're, you know, coming into us, every time we for that spaghetti sauce, or that bottle milk or whatever, we're getting that plastic.
Bernice Butler
Can we say that anytime we heat food, or even put warm food into any plastic container, then for sure, or we're at risk, that plastic and the chemicals, they're in toxins and otherwise are going to leach into whatever we're eating or drinking from that plastic container.
Shanna Swan
That's absolutely right. That's correct. And, and you can see that by doing an experiment where you take people and don't let them do that. Don't let them eat food in plastic for a while. And then you measure their plastics in the urine. And you see it's all gone. So, there's really good proof of that,
Bernice Butler
No doubt about it. And a lot of us did not realize that you can see and measure the plastic in the urine. And I don't imagine that's a normal thing that is tested, when you go to the doctor for your physical, you have to go look for that or something of that nature.
Shanna Swan
That's correct. It's unfortunately, still a little expensive. And there are kits, you know, being developed in testing, developed, that people can use, but they're not on the market yet. But I'm hoping they'll be there. So that would be able to say we don't know the exact number, but we know it's too much,
Bernice Butler
Shanna. Let's talk a little bit more though about some plastic additives. Some terms that we hear a lot about. I read about them, I see them thrown around. And that is PFAS As I've mentioned to you earlier, I've been searching for new pots and pans and being “plastic aware” as I am now, I've been very careful to read what they're made of and coatings and things like that. And what I've noticed on a number, probably three or four sets that I've looked at that state there is no PFOS or PFAS something like that. Talk to us about that. Why are they trying to tell me that?
Shanna Swan
So, he saw some people are chemicals that are very concerning. Unlike the salvage and the machine away, they these are forever chemicals. They stay in our body for years and years and years. The other ones, by the way, leave quickly in a couple of hours. So, we're in some ways more concerned about these forever chemicals that are going to stick around and they're used to coat things. They're used to make things. You know, Teflon coats our pans, scotch guard OUR clothing, and keep off water. They're very useful. But in fact, they do emit chemicals, these chemicals that get into our body and interfere with a number of things, including you mentioned, I think our thyroid system and our immune function, which means that it's going to interfere with how we react to vaccinations, for example, and studies have been done showing that the vaccines are less effective when people are exposed to these chemicals.
Bernice Butler
What would you say are the greatest health cost bodily and monetarily to humans, as a result of the toxins and chemicals associated with plastics and plastic pollution?
Shanna Swan
I would say, there's two places I'd look. One is our reproductive development, which we've talked a lot about. The other is the brain where we're interfering with normal brain development, we've shown that, for example, children that are exposed to plastics in the womb, have later language development, that's going to cost them in terms of their schooling and their development. There's lots of problems with behavior associated with these chemicals. So, there's a lot of behavioral problems, we have to remember that the brain, like every system in the body depends on hormones. So, it needs the right amount of testosterone, and estrogen at the right time, if it's going to develop fully and health into a healthy brain. And when we interfere with that, we're going to interfere with our children's ability to maximize their potential. In many ways.
Bernice Butler
We only have a little while to go, Shanna. So, I want to ask you a couple of things. Again, back to the hormones, I think we've clearly established it just sends the hormones out of whack. Are there any emerging issues that are being studied, or that we're just now seeing in terms of the negative and destructive effects? Plastic pollution on hormones?
Shanna Swan
Well, in last segment, I know that Jane talked about microplastics. And this area of micro plastics is a very new and important area for human health. We do not know the human health effects of exposure to microplastics. And they are so prevalent in, as Jane talked about, in our water, in our air, in our daily lives, every aspect of our life, that if they are impacting our health, it's going to be very, very soon.
Bernice Butler
Yes, they're building up. Yeah. And they have I have to think that they are going to impact the reproductive health that you talk about.
Shanna Swan
I believe so. I believe so. And we can measure them in people's bodies and have done and as well as animals, of course, non-humans, animals. And they're, I can't believe that they're not having a significant impact. But we haven't done those studies yet.
Bernice Butler
Amazing. Shanna. You're writing your book about regulating plastics, and they are associated chemicals. Do you have a vision for how that future might look? How we would do that? What can we do?
Shanna Swan
I have a wish.
Bernice Butler
Yes,
Shanna Swan
That we would make a manufacturer required and a manufacturer proves his chemical to be safe before we introduce it into our products, into our homes, and into our bodies. This to me is absolutely critical. And it's actually required in Europe. There is a program in Europe called the reach program that requires that a chemical be approved, safe, and we have to stop doing what we call whack a mole or regrettable substitution, where we take out this phenol a maybe because people don't want that product and put in B, bisphenol F, or B, which is also harmful. And people are tricked by this. They think, “Okay, BPA free, great.” But it doesn't mean that it's safe. So, I think, you know, we have to have better regulation of the safety of our chemicals. And we have to have the chemists producing the chemicals that we need to make these problems. Product safer.
Bernice Butler
Why is in your opinion, in your experience, you are so much further ahead than we are in terms of something like this.
Shanna Swan
Oh
Bernice Butler
In your opinion, you've been in the field you study a lot, and so your opinion is important to us.
Shanna Swan
I believe that they take the public health more seriously. I think that they're willing to do battle with industry, that we have shied away from. And I think as a result, they have fewer products permitted in Europe, same cosmetics than in the United States. And there's many products that we can't put in Europe that we manufacture here. They just have tougher regulations. That's it. That's what they believe in.
Bernice Butler
And I've heard that on a number of different levels of environmental issues that we cover here on the program. Thank you so much, Shanna. We really appreciate you helping us to unpack this. You have definitely made us smarter. And we have been with Dr. Shanna Swan from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health in New York City. Thank you so much, we appreciate it. And thank you, listeners for listening in today to Healthy Living Healthy Planet Radio. The conversation starts here. But our goal is for it to continue in your home, in your social circles, your workplaces, at the watercooler and in the grocery checkout line, so that we can all work together to realize that healthy living is simply not possible without a healthy planet. Our culture is a result of a trillion tiny acts taken by billions of people every day like yourselves. Each of them can seem insignificant, but all of them add up one way or the other to the change we each live through. This is your host, Bernice Butler. Thank you. And join us again next week as we continue our conversation on plastic pollution, its effect on our environment and our health. Thank you.