Flesh, Blood, and Plastic: An Invisible Threat to Our Health
Nanoplastic is small enough to penetrate our internal tissues, and nearly every single one of us is contaminated
When is the last time you’ve been to the ocean?
It’s been a while for me. No matter how long it’s been, I need only close my eyes and remember it with the vivid clarity of a lucid dream.
The rolling, crashing whisper of waves heaving onto the shore. The feel of wet sand between my toes. The scent of sea salt, drying kelp and driftwood baking in the summer sun. The cry of gulls wheeling overhead, territorial over the food in my hands as if they have a right to it.
The last time I visited an ocean-side town, the moment I stepped off of the bus and took in a breath of fresh sea air, I felt all of the stress in my body evaporate at once. Nothing is as certain to bring a smile to my face as the sight of water stretching far beyond the horizon.
But you all know this about me already; my love affair with the Atlantic Ocean isn’t something I would ever bother to hide!
The health of the ocean and the wellbeing of humanity is inextricably linked.
From oxygen-generating phytoplankton to carbon sequestration, from food sources like kelp and fish to medicinal and technological resources, the ocean is one of the most vital ecosystems on planet Earth.
We simply could not exist without it.
And this is quite apart from the fact that all life on Earth evolved from it — our ancestors came from the sea going back through human history and beyond the point before we could even call ourselves human.
It is the broadest, most all-encompassing, least understood part of our world.
Majesty and mystery all in one.
And yet, like I’ve pointed out in prior articles — including the one above — we keep poisoning it.
Have you ever heard of microplastics?
They’re tiny particles of degraded plastic that come from broken trash. Most forms of plastic are not biodegradable, so they don’t actually break down naturally. They only break apart into smaller and smaller pieces, and those pieces retain all of the same toxic chemicals as the whole original object.
When little pieces of this plastic become widespread in an ecosystem, it impacts everything it touches.
Microplastics and nanoplastics — which are microscopic particles, small enough to enter our bloodstream through the food we eat and the water we drink — enter the food chain when they’re ingested by fish and animals.
Like us. We’re animals.
There’s a concept in toxicology called ‘Bioaccumulation.’ This is the process by which a toxin builds up in an animal’s system faster than the body can excrete it through waste. When an animal is repeatedly exposed to this toxin, it accumulates in their system and becomes entrenched.
And then this accumulated, concentrated poison is passed up the food chain when predators ingest their prey. This is in very simple terms, I don’t want to get too technical.
When these micro-and-nanoplastics get into our bloodstream, the effects are long lasting and severe. Symptoms of plastic toxicity include:
Intestinal injury and gastrointestinal distress
Respiratory symptoms like coughing and wheezing
Liver infections and reduced liver function
Cardiovascular concerns, such as increased risk of heart attack, stroke and clotting
Endocrine disruption, including hormone cycle imbalances and infertility
There are more, but do I really need to go on? These seem bad enough to me.
What’s more, thanks to the sheer volume of plastic waste that enters the ocean or is dumped into the wilderness through our trash, most humans on the planet have been exposed in some way.
Researchers have been tracking this trend for quite a while, and at current levels, around 77% of volunteered blood samples test positive for nanoplastic contamination. It has even been found in breast milk, in stool samples from newborn babies and placental tissue after birth.
This suggests that babies are having these plastics passed to them through the umbilical cord while still in the womb.
Newborn infants are exposed to poison throughout their development, long before they take their first breaths. And this is not a natural phenomenon; this is our fault.
I miss feeling the ocean spray on my face. I miss the cries of gulls, scuttling crabs, and the scent of salt on the breeze.
Every now and then it hits me how very homesick I am for the rolling breakers in the surf.
Lately I’ve been craving a connection to the ocean that I haven’t visited in some time, and it’s driving me to do a lot of reflecting and researching in an effort to satisfy that longing.
Seeing what we’ve done to it over the decades, even centuries before now utterly breaks my heart.
We overfish, we pollute, we take it for granted and we treat it like a midden heap for our trash. We throw in added salt, toxic chemicals, oil and radioactive contaminants. We watch the temperature rise and shrug as thousands, millions of species begin to vanish.
We avert our eyes as thousands of dead marine animals wash up on our shores, killed by our own negligence and disinterest.
We look at the destruction of natural habitats, the bleaching and dying of once-magnificent coral reefs, and we continue to make it worse. We watch coastal communities suffer as their way of life is eroded, washed away like a sand castle at high tide.
Microplastics and nanoplastics are just one of the many, many problems caused by our actions. It is an invisible threat to the health of our planet, and to ourselves. It is a poison of our own creation.
And sadly, it’s a malevolent genie we might not be able to put back into the bottle.
Solidarity wins.
You're right, it's a crying shame what humans are doing to the oceans. Unfortunately, we are a long way off from stopping it. Good article. Plastics and the chase for wealth is what will kill a large part of the planets ecosystems someday, maybe even in your lifetime. Most certainly in the generations after yours.