The flour plastic has invaded the air and our bodies. Can the plastic material treaty wipe the air?

Thousands of Delegate I descended to Geneva this week when it is supposed to be the culmination of years of negotiations that, if successful, is supposed to end in a leading global plastic treaty. They may breathe in the thing they are trying to clean while negotiating.

Greenpeace tested the air Throughout the city before starting the conversations this month and found a small amount of fine plastic. It was not a strict study because it was a way to prove a point. Methlip plastic appears everywhere, including in the air we breathe.

For this reason, defenders of health and environmental, as well as the governments alliance, are pushing for an ambitious plastic treaty in Geneva. Recycling is not enough – Only production reduction can soak the plastic pollution wave, as they claim.

“You can find exact plastic in urban air, and this is not really shocking because it was reported before in other cities. I think this is just a way to clarify that anywhere is free of this pollution,” says David Santilo, one of the world’s great laboratories.

Greenpeace connected the air control device to a person while he was going to be in Geneva, where they spent about eight hours and outside the stores, cafes, offices and railway station. The samples they collected on July 17 were to show what might be exposed to a model visitor to the city; They could not take any samples inside the negotiating rooms that the delegates already use.

The device had a replaceable silver candidate, which was able to analyze the green peace researchers to find out the molecules that they burned, which amounted to at least 165 fibers and fragments. The filters picked up a group of different materials such as parts of the skin and vegetable fibers and it was more likely. However, Greenpeace was interested in synthetic materials, and was ultimately able to determine 12 flour plastic pieces, including polyester, nylon, polyethylene used to make bottles, bags and other types of plastic. This may not seem much, but the institution had only the equipment to be able to discover larger molecules of no less than 10 microns in size. (For comparison, the average human hair is about 70 microns.)

“If they find adults, this is a largely fair bet that the youngest was also there,” said Philip Landregan, Director of World Public Health and the good public program at Boston College, who did not participate in the study of Green Pace.

In general, the smaller the particle, the more problems they can form through the ability to penetrate deeper into the organs and tissues in the human body. The human brain may contain as much as a Spoon value From strict plastic, search Published In the magazine Nature Medicine Earlier this year suggested.

“Unfortunately, accurate plastic is everywhere in today’s world,” says Landrigan. It is the main author of August reportPublished in the magazine LancetOn the links between plastic pollution and health results.

“Plastic causes illness and death from childhood to aging,” the report says, adding that plastic is responsible for $ 1.5 trillion of economic losses related to health every year. The report explains all the risks along the plastic life cycle, including the chemicals that are exposed to workers and societies near manufacturing facilities, and waste divided into nanoparticles found in human bodies and breast milk.

Scientists are still working to understand the health effects of inhalation of accurate plastic in the air. Landrigan notes that at least we know that all plastic materials are made of two main components, which is the backbone based on carbon, derived from fossil fuels and chemical additives.

“When the strict plate comes to the human body, whether you inhale it, drink it with water, or eat it with your food, when you reach you and the plastic moves from the digestive system to the bloodstream, the fine plastic molecules carry all these chemicals with it.”

More than 16,000 different chemicals used in plastic production – including Cancer vinyl chlorideFor example – mainly responsible for the well -known health risks associated with plastic materials. But the toxicity of more than 75 percent of the chemicals in the plastic has not yet been studied.

Greenpeace does not claim that it assesses air quality in Geneva or healthy effects of what they found in air samples. All they can show is the presence of fine plastic in the air, which adds to Previous research He did the same. What is noticeable now is that Greenpeace has documented this at a time when leaders from all over the world have the opportunity to do something about it.

Negotiations on the plastic treaty in Geneva are scheduled to end on August 14. In 2022, member states agreed to the United Nations to develop a binding agreement on plastic pollution. It has been a difficult battle to agree on the conditions since then. The countries of the main fossil fuel A deal was prevented in DecemberPaying negotiations after the date of 2024. The fossil fuel industry and countries Including the United States This produces many plastic materials and their components fighting their efforts to exclude the limits of plastic production from the treaty.

A “High aspiration Alliance” On the other hand, Rwanda and Norway, on the other hand, launched the treatment of the full life cycle of plastic, starting with production. It’s too Open To use the treaty to gradually get rid of or restrict the use of problematic chemicals in plastic.

Angel Pago, Greenpece Global Plastic Campaign Lead says: It is not simply that the plastic papers are raised in chaos without turning off the tap, “says Angel Pago, Greenpece Global Plastic Campaign Lead. “We fill in plastic because of excessive production. We can only solve this crisis, as you know, cleaning,” says Pago. freedom From Geneva.

Lancet “The main driver of the (health) crisis is accelerating the growth in plastic production,” says an article. Production was swollen from 2 meters megaton in 1950 to 475 in 2022. Lower 10 percent of plastic waste was partial, partially because many chemicals used to manufacture different types make difficult or unrealistic reformulation.

“If we will do something about plastic, we need to reduce plastic production,” says Landrigan. “I hope that the treaty negotiators will actually produce a treaty that protects human health.”