Microplastics are everywhere - even in places we never expected

In 2023, a freight train carrying vinyl chloride— one of the ingredients of plastic — derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The vapors spread when that spill was intentionally set on fire and poisoned hundreds of people.

Plastics break down slowly, and tiny particles called microplastics have been found everywhere — from the highest peak in the Himalayas to Antarctica.

Judith Enck is a former regional administrator for the EPA and the author of "The Problem with Plastic." She'll be speaking about her book on March 7 at the Oxford Exchange in Tampa.

Enck spoke with WUSF about the threat microplastics pose, how people can wean themselves off using plastics and more.

The interview below was edited for clarity and brevity.

WUSF: Do you think most people really have even heard of microplastics and have any idea of the threat that might be posed?

ENCK: I don't, and that's one reason I wrote the book. And it's a very conversational book. It's not technical.

So we point out, for instance, that 16,000 different chemicals are used to make plastics.

Now those chemicals don't just appear at the manufacturing facility. They have to be transported, so you mentioned the terrible train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Those trains were carrying vinyl chloride, a carcinogen. And 99% of it is used to make plastic.

And then we've learned from health researchers, really just in the last few years, that microplastics have been found in almost every part of our body.

And so you have this double risk of just the physicality of the microplastic, which is a piece of plastic that's five millimeters or less, and then every piece of plastic has toxic chemicals in it, so the toxics hitchhike on the microplastics, and unfortunately, microplastics have been found in our blood, our kidneys, our lungs, the human placenta, breast milk, testicles.

Most recently, there's been peer-reviewed science that identified microplastics in the arteries in our necks, attaches to plaque, and if that's the case, you have an increased risk of heart attack, stroke or premature death.

And finally, we know that microplastics have crossed the blood-brain barrier, and when that happens, there's an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological diseases.

For years, people thought of plastics as a waste issue. It is definitely a waste issue, but it's also a health issue, a climate change issue, an environmental justice issue and a taxpayer issue.

Do we really know the health effects of it just yet, or is this still kind of a science that maybe it's like smoking —we'll find out years down the road?

Yes, we know enough to act, and I'm glad you used the tobacco example, because scientists knew the problems with tobacco and secondhand smoke for decades, before the government acted to protect public health, and today, we have enough science to make the case that we should be reducing the use of plastic, particularly for food and beverage packaging.

Microplastics is a pretty serious issue, and every year we learn more and more. We know that there are microplastics in drinking water. The major way it gets into our body is we breathe it in or we swallow it. So I do believe there's enough to act.

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And I'd also add that there's a tremendous health risk in the communities where plastics are manufactured. So that's mostly Louisiana, Texas, Appalachia. There's a stretch in Louisiana called "cancer alley," where there's a concentration of petrochemical facilities, and a study by Johns Hopkins found that there's a seven times greater risk of those residents developing cancer than in other parts of the country.

So I would argue the health risk is actually more pronounced in the communities, often low-income communities of color, where the plastics are being made and then the health risk is spread out worldwide, among people who are everyday users of plastic.

You talk about the effects on people of color, lower-income people and people in "cancer alley" in Louisiana, which has been having problems with petrochemicals for decades. But that really doesn't seem to affect the psyche of most people. What do you think it's going to take for this to become a major public health issue where people are openly talking about it and trying to come up with some kind of solution to it?

I think the unfortunate reality that most of us have microplastics in our bodies, it is not reassuring to know that microplastics are present in our major organs and that our babies are being born pre-polluted.

There are microplastics in the placenta, both the fetal side and the maternal side. And then when the baby is born, if the mother chooses to breastfeed, there are microplastics in breast milk. I think that's really significant and should be noted by anyone who's pregnant, thinking of getting pregnant, or who has a little one.

I think the health information is getting more defined with every passing year, and because so many people react to self-interest. If they don't live in Louisiana or Texas, it's distant.

I think the health issue is resonating with people — also the climate change issue. Historically, plastics were made from mostly oil and chemicals. Now it's made from chemicals and ethane, a byproduct of hydrofracking, which is making the climate crisis even worse.

Can we realistically wean ourselves off plastic?

Yes, and we can't rely on the government of Louisiana or Texas to reject some of these petrochemical proposals, although residents coming together in S.t James Parish, Louisiana, St. John Parish, Louisiana, have actually beat back some giant plastic production proposals, specifically with a company called Formosa Plastics out of Taiwan.

But I think there are definitely alternatives to plastics, and it's not a space-age material. I mean, I'm really interested in bamboo and mycelium and seaweed, but we have paper, cardboard, metal, glass, those are all made from recycled material, and actually do get recycled when you put it in your recycling bin, as opposed to most plastics.

But we need new laws to require less plastic, because companies are not going to shift on their own. But the alternatives are there. We've all grown up with a song, "reduce, reuse, recycle." We need reduction first.

You mentioned recycling. This has basically been sold by companies as one way to solve the problem for decades. But only a tiny fraction of plastics can actually be recycled. Can you discuss that?

Only 5% to 6% of plastics get recycled in the United States. Plastic recycling has been an abysmal failure. Everyone should keep recycling paper, metal, glass, cardboard, compost, your yard waste and food waste.

But plastics recycling mostly doesn't work because there are 16,000 different chemicals, different colors, different polymers, different types of plastic.

So, for instance, in your laundry room, you might have a bright orange hard plastic detergent bottle. In your kitchen, you might have a film plastic bread bag. Those two things cannot be recycled together. That's why plastics recycling is at the very, very low level and is not likely to improve, because, by design, most plastics are not recyclable.

And most of them get burned in incinerators or are buried in landfills?

Absolutely right. And Florida has the terrible distinction of having more garbage incinerators than any other state, and when you burn plastic, you get small amounts of dioxins and furans that are formed. And I'm astonished that communities in Florida are actually thinking about building a new garbage incinerator that is a dying industry. It's expensive. It's polluting.

It doesn't eliminate the need for landfill, because you have so much ash produced, both fly ash and bottom ash, but incinerator operators love getting their hands on plastics, because it's essentially a fossil fuel. So it burns hot, and it burns unlike any other material, and the air pollution is significant.

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