Chemical pollution has passed safe limit for humanity, say scientists

ThatBoyNick · Jan 18, 2022

Study calls for cap on production and release as pollution threatens global ecosystems upon which life depends

The cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet now threatens the stability of global ecosystems upon which humanity depends, scientists have said.

Plastics are of particularly high concern, they said, along with 350,000 synthetic chemicals including pesticides, industrial compounds and antibiotics. Plastic pollution is now found from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans, and some toxic chemicals, such as PCBs, are long-lasting and widespread.

The study concludes that chemical pollution has crossed a “planetary boundary”, the point at which human-made changes to the Earth push it outside the stable environment of the last 10,000 years.

Chemical pollution threatens Earth’s systems by damaging the biological and physical processes that underpin all life. For example, pesticides wipe out many non-target insects, which are fundamental to all ecosystems and, therefore, to the provision of clean air, water and food.

“There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050,” said Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) who was part of the study team. “The pace that societies are producing and releasing new chemicals into the environment is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity.”

Dr Sarah Cornell, an associate professor and principal researcher at SRC, said: “For a long time, people have known that chemical pollution is a bad thing. But they haven’t been thinking about it at the global level. This work brings chemical pollution, especially plastics, into the story of how people are changing the planet.”

Some threats have been tackled to a larger extent, the scientists said, such as the CFC chemicals that destroy the ozone layer and its protection from damaging ultraviolet rays.

Determining whether chemical pollution has crossed a planetary boundary is complex because there is no pre-human baseline, unlike with the climate crisis and the pre-industrial level of CO2 in the atmosphere. There are also a huge number of chemical compounds registered for use – about 350,000 – and only a tiny fraction of these have been assessed for safety.

So the research used a combination of measurements to assess the situation. These included the rate of production of chemicals, which is rising rapidly, and their release into the environment, which is happening much faster than the ability of authorities to track or investigate the impacts.

The well-known negative effects of some chemicals, from the extraction of fossil fuels to produce them to their leaking into the environment, were also part of the assessment. The scientists acknowledged the data was limited in many areas, but said the weight of evidence pointed to a breach of the planetary boundary.

“There’s evidence that things are pointing in the wrong direction every step of the way,” said Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg who was part of the team. “For example, the total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals. That to me is a pretty clear indication that we’ve crossed a boundary. We’re in trouble, but there are things we can do to reverse some of this.”

Villarrubia-Gómez said: “Shifting to a circular economy is really important. That means changing materials and products so they can be reused, not wasted.”

The researchers said stronger regulation was needed and in the future a fixed cap on chemical production and release, in the same way carbon targets aim to end greenhouse gas emissions. Their study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology

There are growing calls for international action on chemicals and plastics, including the establishment of a global scientific body for chemical pollution akin to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Prof Sir Ian Boyd at the University of St Andrews, who was not part of the study, said: “The rise of the chemical burden in the environment is diffuse and insidious. Even if the toxic effects of individual chemicals can be hard to detect, this does not mean that the aggregate effect is likely to be insignificant.

“Regulation is not designed to detect or understand these effects. We are relatively blind to what is going on as a result. In this situation, where we have a low level of scientific certainty about effects, there is a need for a much more precautionary approach to new chemicals and to the amount being emitted to the environment.”

Boyd, a former UK government chief scientific adviser, warned in 2017 that assumption by regulators around the world that it was safe to use pesticides at industrial scales across landscapes was false.

The chemical pollution planetary boundary is the fifth of nine that scientists say have been crossed, with the others being global heating, the destruction of wild habitats, loss of biodiversity and excessive nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.
Click to expand...

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists

Linke to study - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158#

ThatBoyNick · Jan 18, 2022

We're 15 years too late": Endocrine-disrupting plastic additive BPA is still in everything

Shortly before 2021 came to a close, a little-known agency proposed some new safety standards that accidentally triggered serious questions about human health in the age of plastics.

More specifically, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) determined that a plastic additive called bisphenol A (BPA) needs to be dramatically reduced in our environment — that is, people should have their exposure to the chemical limited to no more than 0.018 nanograms per pound of body weight per day. This would decrease one's interactions with the pollutant by a factor of 100,000 from what they currently are.

In case you have been living in a part of the world that is untouched by plastic — which, it turns out, doesn't exist — BPA is everywhere, in all kinds of different plastics. Aside from some laws limiting its use in infant formula packaging and baby bottles, companies use it to make water bottles and food can liners, leftover containers and dishware, eyeglass lenses and household electronics, and even commercial receipts that come out of thermal printers. BPAs are in microplastics, or tiny plastic particles that you consume but rarely see because they are so small. And BPA is so ubiquitous that it gets inside our bodies before we are even born: one 2014 study detected the chemical in 75% of nursing mothers' breast milk, and in the urine of 93% of their infants.

This wouldn't be an issue if there weren't concerns about BPA affecting human health. (More on that later). Despite its ubiquity in the human body, and despite growing public awareness about plastic pollution, there are almost no meaningful regulations on BPA in the United States.

Many companies claim to be reducing their use of BPA, as observed in the recent trend of labeling cans and plastic bottles "BPA-free." Unfortunately, many of the replacements for BPA are equally bad, and some cause genetic defects, as Science previously reported.

Indeed, while many corporations say they are reducing the presence of BPA in consumer plastics, studies have cast doubt on whether they are telling the truth. Either way, there are no agencies to hold them accountable.

Who should Americans trust — the government agencies that, through their inactivity, imply that you should not be worried about BPA? Or the European regulators whose drastic new regulation indicates that you should?

Part of the challenge is that chemistry is not as precise in its conclusions as would be convenient for the general public.

"First, let's address some of the 'baggage' that comes from studying chemicals the ways that we do... when we want to know something 'for sure,' that's sort of a nice way of saying that we've proven a link between X and Y," Dr. Laura N. Vandenberg, a professor at the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst, told Salon by email. "But to a scientist, we never actually prove anything, we merely determine the strength of the evidence that X can cause Y. This means that there's always the chance that new evidence would change our minds — tip the scales, so to speak, for the strength of the evidence."

That is why, when it comes to BPA, there is always a chance that the existing body of research is wrong and more evidence will come out revealing it to be innocuous. For right now, however, the scientific material is sobering.

"As for BPA, let me say this: for many, many effects of BPA, the evidence is overwhelming that is causes harm," Vandenberg explained. "It would be extremely unlikely that a new study, or even many new studies, would overturn that conclusion." Vandenberg specifically pointed to research on how BPA seems to damage the brain and metabolic health, as well as experiments on rodents which suggest links with prostate and mammary gland diseases.

"Some of these effects are harder to look at in human populations because, for example, there would be a 20-50 year lag between a fetal BPA exposure and an increase in breast cancer," Vandenberg told Salon.

"As an endocrinologist and a scientist doing research on endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) such as BPA, the new regulations are a step in the right direction," Dr. Andrea C Gore, Professor and Vacek Chair in Pharmacology at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote to Salon. "There is simply no such thing as a 'safe' dose of any chemical known to disrupt hormones. The endocrine system evolved to be extraordinarily sensitive to natural hormones, and as a result, it is also sensitive to infinitesimally small amounts of hormone-disrupting chemicals." In Gore's opinion, regulators should not try to find acceptable minimums for these chemicals, but ban them outright.

"BPA studies in animals consistently demonstrate cause-and-effect relationships with abnormalities of reproduction, behavior, metabolism, and others," Gore explained. "Although we can't prove cause-and-effect in humans, epidemiological (population) studies are consistent with the experimental data."

You might think that a story such as this would make headlines, but as with Big Tobacco fighting nicotine regulations and Big Oil fighting climate change regulations, the various industries that use BPA engage in a practice known as "manufacturing doubt." This is when an industry begins to raise spurious points criticizing the scientific body of evidence proving that something they want to do should be curtailed, whether through the law or other means. They will find sympathetic researchers to give them industry-friendly conclusions, smear people who bring up science as "opponents" and overall make a cut-and-dried scientific fact seem like a "controversy" to the general public.

While BPA hasn't garnered the headlines of nicotine or carbon pollution, the polluters have still benefited from the dynamics of manufacturing doubt.

"For 25 years we have been seeing 'manufacturing of doubt' by the producers of BPA and by many of the companies using the chemical in their packaging, to prevent regulators banning this chemical in food packaging," Jane Muncke of the Food Packaging Forum, a nonprofit foundation that studies chemicals in all food packaging materials and their impacts on health, told Salon by email. "This ranged from making fun of scientists who issued the alarm and share their concern to hostile attacks, threats and attempts to 'buy out' academics and prevent them from publishing their work. It would make a great Hollywood movie!"

Even when they do not try to wrongly smear the science, the various industries will sow doubt by making it seem like they're doing the right thing when in fact they are not.

"Some have just switched from BPA to BPF [bisphenol F] or BPS [bisphenol S], placed a label 'BPA-free' on their products and peddled the new, equally hazardous chemical to the world," Muncke explained. "This is called 'regrettable substitution' (in polite circles), but one could imagine other more explicit terms. It's basically taking people for a ride."

Even companies that sincerely try to replace BPA struggle with the fact that we still do not know whether their alternatives are actually safer.

"The best way to eliminate BPA is to switch to alternative packaging, ideally reusable and made from inert, non-migrating materials – or to eliminate packaging altogether," Muncke concluded.

Vandenberg had a similar idea, noting to Salon that there are plenty of ways that people could do away with BPAs and not even really notice the difference.

"BPA is widely used in thermal papers used for receipts," Vandenberg observed. "Do you actually need a hard-copy receipt for every purchase? Certainly not, and this is why some groups are substituting electronic receipts. Thus, thinking in a new way about products and the job those products are intended to do can lead us to more creative solutions. That can take us beyond the whack-a-mole approach of pick-a-chemical, find out it's bad, pick-another-chemical that we're reliant on right now."

Sadly, this thinking may have already come too late for millions of people.

"In my view, the weight of the evidence tipped the scales against BPA more than 15 years ago," Vandenberg wrote. "Think of what that means — an entire generation of children were exposed to this chemical at levels that we, scientists, knew would likely cause them harm."
Click to expand...

https://www.salon.com/2022/01/16/bpa-plastics-harmful/

Invisible Fan · Jan 18, 2022

The road to hell is paved with plastic, and oil majors are laughing all the way to the bank.

Anyways, awareness is growing about the destructive packaging we use. This is very promising and hopeful.

Countdown on some libertarian jackass whining about their right to use plastic...5....4...

tinman · Jan 18, 2022

ThatBoyNick said: ↑

Study calls for cap on production and release as pollution threatens global ecosystems upon which life depends

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists

Linke to study - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158#
Click to expand...

People have a romance with chemicals
I’m not okay is their famous last words

KingCheetah · Jan 19, 2022

We're saved.
______

Bacteria In The Oceans And Soils Are Actually Evolving To Eat Plastics

https://hyperobject.io/bacteria-in-the-oceans-and-soils-are-actually-evolving-to-eat-plastics/

FrontRunner · Jan 24, 2023

@Sajan linked to an article at Jalopnik which led me to this one...

Tire Dust Is the ‘DDT Of Our Generation’
Companies know their products threaten wild fish habitats, but they have no plans to stop using the deadly chemicals.

By Erin Marquis
Jalopnik.com

Research scientists are sounding the alarm in the Pacific Northwest after this month’s “atmospheric river” drenched much of the state’s roads, sending brake and tire dust into rivers, streams and, eventually, the Pacific Ocean.

We all know the exhaust from our cars is bad for our health and the environment, but dust from tire and brake wear is just as damaging. California experienced heavy storms in the early half of January, which sent heavily polluted runoff from the roads to the waterways. It turns out there’s a particular chemical found in tires that seem to suffocate the highly endangered coho salmon. From Forbes (paywall):

A growing body of research indicates that in addition to being a major source of microplastic pollution, the chemical 6PPD, an additive that’s used to keep tires from wearing out, reacts with ozone in the atmosphere to form a toxic new substance scientists call 6PPD-Quinone. It’s killing coho salmon and likely harms other types of fish, which exhibit symptoms resembling suffocation.

The devastation of the coho, which the U.S. designates as an endangered species, has reached crisis level. In California’s Central Coast, estimates suggest the fish is already close to extinction, with its population plunging from as high as 500,000 fish in the 1940s to a few thousand currently. While generally more abundant in Washington state, the population of wild coho salmon was estimated to have plunged to around 200,000, a third of the level of 2021, according to Puget Sound Institute. And while tire manufacturers say they’re following the issue closely, they don’t know when or if they’ll have a safe alternative to 6PPD. They’ve been using it for decades.

“This is the DDT of our generation,” David Troutt, head of natural resources for the Nisqually Tribe in Washington, told Forbes. “This thing is killing salmon every time it rains in the Puget Sound region. We can’t take it anymore.”

But it isn’t just this one fish pollution we should worry about. Tire dust accounts for 6 million tons of micro-pollutants each year, current estimates suggest. With such a mass of material it’s not just salmon which are threatened by chemicals in tire dust. And it’s almost certainly not just 6PPD-Quinone we have to worry about. California’s Department of Toxic Substance Control is also investigating six other harmful chemicals found in tires. 6PPD-Quinone is considered the “low hanging fruit” of researchers investigating tire dust’s impact on the environment, Forbes reports. Tires contain all sorts of heavy metals, chemicals and synthetic compounds, the effects of which on humans and their environment are not completely understood.

Though found in its highest concentrations in runoff water, according to a study published in Environment International, tire dust can be fine enough to be inhaled as well. The Union For Concerned Scientists found cars, trucks and buses are a significant source for some of the pollution most harmful to human health — particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or PM 2.5:

Continued...

tinman · Jan 24, 2023

ThatBoyNick said: ↑

Study calls for cap on production and release as pollution threatens global ecosystems upon which life depends

https://www.theguardian.com/environ...passed-safe-limit-for-humanity-say-scientists

Linke to study - https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158#
Click to expand...

Ubiquitin · Jan 24, 2023

https://bbs.clutchfans.net/threads/transgendering-the-kids.317062/page-30#post-14435328
@Commodore

tinman · Jan 25, 2023

@basso

rocketsjudoka · Jan 25, 2023

Yep we're already too late. If we stopped using plastics today there are so much out there already that if there are archeaologists a thousand years from now will still be finding them.

Biological solutions such bacteria and fungi that are adapting to eat plastic are a possible solution but there is so much plastic out there they might not be able to make enough of a difference. Also bioengineering them and releasing them on a widescale might have unintended consequences.

dmoneybangbang · Jan 25, 2023

Microplastics in drinking water is far more dangerous than a Covid shot, but yet this gets lumped into the woke climate change agenda.

tinman · Jan 26, 2023

rocketsjudoka said: ↑

Yep we're already too late. If we stopped using plastics today there are so much out there already that if there are archeaologists a thousand years from now will still be finding them.

Biological solutions such bacteria and fungi that are adapting to eat plastic are a possible solution but there is so much plastic out there they might not be able to make enough of a difference. Also bioengineering them and releasing them on a widescale might have unintended consequences.
Click to expand...

Man this is out of control
@basso

basso · Jan 26, 2023

tinman said: ↑

Man this is out of control
@basso

Click to expand...

we'll be lucky to live through it.

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