<
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/30/babies-in-the-global-south-are-being-poisoned-by-plastic-from-the-north-yet-they-are-missing-from-the-data>
"For the last 70 years, we have all been lab rats in the biggest health
experiment of human history, one that none of us signed up for, least of all
our children.
In the run-up to attending the global plastic treaty negotiations in Nairobi, I
was feeling frustrated about the coverage of microplastics and their impact on
human health, so I wrote a report,
Babies v Plastics. I wanted to emphasise
that these tiny, insidious fragments of plastic are associated with not just
one health risk, but with an entire range of health issues, from elevated
miscarriage rates to early puberty.
Some chemicals used in the manufacture of plastics, known as phthalates, are
associated with up to 20% higher rates of childhood cancer overall. There is
evidence that microplastics can interrupt maternal-foetal communication and
potentially damage DNA. They have been associated with type 2 diabetes, and
even conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The
list goes on.
However, the public are highly unlikely to know this. They would have to scour
the press for every single article out there to fully understand the scale of
this involuntary mass poisoning at the hands of the unaccountable plastic
industry.
Absorbing the research was unnerving but it gave me a new perspective. The
research on this topic, while commendable and much-needed, exists within a
strange vacuum that largely ignores one group: the children of the global
south. The additive chemicals of microplastics are slowly poisoning everyone,
but the research has failed to account for people of all socioeconomic and
geographical backgrounds.
That is damning when you consider that between 2.14m and as much as 4m tonnes
of plastic waste are shipped south from the global north every year. When China
shut its doors to plastic waste in 2017, Malaysia, Ghana, Vietnam, Cambodia and
the Philippines all saw an increase in the volume of plastic waste arriving at
their shores. This fact seems especially galling given that we don’t include
their children in our research on the health risks of exposure to
microplastics."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
