As talks on plastics treaty resume, Lancet report calls for interventions to mitigate harm

Indian Express

04-08-2025

As nations resume negotiations Tuesday for a global treaty on plastics, a new report published in The Lancet journal warned of its grave threat to human and planetary health but said the harm can be mitigated through effectively implemented policies.
'Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age and are responsible for health-related economic losses exceeding $1.5 trillion annually. These impacts fall disproportionately upon low income and at-risk populations,' the report said.
The medical journal also launched a health-focused global monitoring system on the manufacture and use of plastics, called the Lancet Countdown on health and plastics. This is similar to the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change it had launched to monitor the health impacts of climate change.
'This Countdown will identify, track, and regularly report on a suite of geographically and temporally representative indicators that monitor progress toward reducing plastic exposures and mitigating plastics' harms to human and planetary health,' the report said.
From Tuesday, ministers and negotiators from across the world are meeting in Geneva for the second round of the fifth session of what is known as the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, which has been negotiating a Global Plastics Treaty for the last three years. This treaty is meant to be an internationally legally binding agreement to tackle plastics pollution across its entire life cycle, though serious differences persist over the scope and nature of this agreement.
The Lancet report said interventions such as an international agreement were necessary to reduce the dangers from plastics pollution.
'Continued worsening of plastics-associated harms is not inevitable. Similar to ambient air pollution, lead, mercury, climate change, and chlorofluorocarbons, plastics' harms can be successfully and cost-effectively mitigated with evidence-based laws and policies that are supported by enabling measures and facilitated by effective implementation measures,' it said.
Philip Landrigan, a paediatrician and epidemiologist, and Director of the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College, who is the lead author of the Lancet report, said that the new Countdown will identify and regularly report on a suite of scientifically meaningful and geographically and temporally representative indicators across all stages of the plastic life cycle.
'It will track progress towards minimising exposures and mitigating human health impacts. In doing so, the Countdown will provide independent data that can continue to inform decision-making for the benefit of public health,' Landrigan, who is also Co-Chair, the Lancet Countdown on Health and Plastics, said in an email interview with The Indian Express.
Landrigan said there were two factors that make plastic a huge threat for all countries at every level of income. First is the sheer magnitude of the problem.
'An estimated 10 billion tons of plastic have been produced since 1950 and half of this plastic has been made since 2002. And because plastic is durable and persists for decades in the environment, an estimated 8 Gigatons of plastic waste – 80% of all plastic ever made – now pollutes the planet – a massive problem by any measure,' he said.
Second, plastics contain more than 16,000 chemicals. These chemicals leak out of plastic products during use and get into people, especially children. Landrigan said these include chemicals that are known to be human carcinogens, neurotoxicants, and endocrine disruptors as well as many more that have never been tested for toxicity and whose dangers are still unknown.
Early studies have shown possible links between microplastic and nanoplastic particles (MNPs) and lung diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, liver cirrhosis, myocardial infarction and stroke. In the past 2–3 years, MNPs have been increasingly reported in human tissues and body fluids in the general population, including blood, breastmilk, liver, kidney, colon, placenta, lung, spleen, brain, heart, great vessels, meconium, and feces.
'These findings suggest that MNPs might be able to cross key biological barriers, including the gastrointestinal lining, the alveolar–endothelial interface, the blood–brain barrier, and the placenta. These findings require further validation, as measuring MNPs in biological samples in the size range smaller than 1–10 micrometers — those that most plausibly cross biological barriers and enter organs and tissues — remains challenging, as does excluding potential contamination. However early studies have shown possible links between MNPs and lung diseases, inflammatory bowel disease, liver cirrhosis, myocardial infarction and stroke,' the Lancet report said.
Anuradha Mascarenhas is a journalist with The Indian Express and is based in Pune. A senior editor, Anuradha writes on health, research developments in the field of science and environment and takes keen interest in covering women's issues. With a career spanning over 25 years, Anuradha has also led teams and often coordinated the edition.
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