How Climate Change Amplifies Plastic Pollution Threats
A drainage ditch blocked by plastic waste following the August monsoon floods in Pakistan. Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images
According to CNN
The flow of microplastics already poses a real threat to the environment and health, but with rising temperatures and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events, it becomes a more mobile, longer-lasting, and dangerous pollutant.
The connection between plastic and the climate is usually viewed through production using fossil fuels: emissions appear at every stage of the life cycle – from production to disposal.
Yet less attention is paid to how climate change – heat waves, fires, and floods – intensifies plastic pollution, spreads it further, and makes it more dangerous.
A team of scientists reviewed hundreds of studies and found “sufficient evidence” that climate change worsens plastic pollution in water, soil, air, and the environments of living organisms.
Plastic pollution and climate – joint crises that mutually reinforce one another.
Mechanisms of impact and real-world examples
Connections between processes are diverse and complex. Increases in temperature, humidity, and solar radiation break plastic down into smaller pieces; even a 10-degree rise during an extreme heat wave can double the rate of decomposition.
Extreme storms, floods, and strong winds also accelerate breakdown, mobilization, and wider dispersion of plastic. For instance, typhoons in Hong Kong raised the concentration of microplastics in beach sands by nearly 40-fold.
In a strange twist, floods can promote the formation of “plastic rocks,” when stones and plastic form chemical bonds and fuse, creating hotspots for microplastics.
Microplastics also act as a “Trojan horse,” transporting pesticides and so-called “persistent” chemicals – because they do not easily degrade; higher temperatures may facilitate their absorption and release, as well as increasing their tendency to leach from the plastic itself.
When two calamities – plastic pollution and climate change – collide, the consequences for animals, particularly marine life, can be significant. Studies indicate that microplastics reduce the ability of corals, mollusks, sea urchins, mussels, and fish to withstand the warming of the ocean and the acidification of seawater caused by climate change.
Apex predators, such as orcas, could be canaries in the coal mine, because they may be particularly vulnerable.
The study offers several pathways to solutions: reducing plastic use, reuse and recycling, and also rethinking product design and moving away from unnecessary single-use plastic.
“The greatest hope for success” could come from a global plastic treaty that would have legal obligations and focus on stopping pollution, but years of negotiations have not yielded agreement; countries are divided, notably on limits to plastic production, which many experts consider critically important.
According to the authors, solutions are becoming increasingly urgent as the situation is forecast to worsen. Global plastic production from 1950 to 2023 grew about 200-fold and, as expected, will continue to rise with the shift to clean energy and the reallocation of oil company investments into plastics.
“We need to act now, because the plastic that is discarded today threatens the future of global-scale ecosystem disruption,” said Stephanie Wright, one of the study’s authors and an associate professor at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London.
Tamara Galloway, a professor of ecotoxicology at the University of Exeter who did not participate in the study, regards the analysis as important, especially in light of the future: what will happen if people continue to heat the planet.
There is definitely a lack of studies that consider both of these global health challenges together,” she told CNN. “At the base of both is a need to reduce the excessive patterns of consumption that are driving both climate change and plastic pollution.