System Update: Microplastics are everywhere

Here’s what you can do about it. [View this email in your browser]( | [Manage newsletter subscriptions](newsletter=wir) [WIRED Special Edition: Letter from the Editor] 10.27.22 If you’re not yet a subscriber, please enjoy this special edition of System Update. And if you like what you see, please consider [subscribing to WIRED](. You’ll get full access to everything we publish online. Plus, you’ll be supporting ambitious journalists like Matt Simon, and his groundbreaking reporting on an invisible, all-pervasive contaminant... [SUBSCRIBE NOW](   “I just want to say one word to you. Just one word.” “Yes, sir.” “Are you listening?” “Yes, I am.” “Plastics.” The miracle material canonized in [that little exchange]( from The Graduate (1967) is now in almost everything: Even “100% cotton” clothes are coated in synthetic polymers for water-proofing, and paper cups have plastic liners. But its ubiquity goes much further than that. The world is filling up with microplastics and nanoplastics—invisibly small fragments of the stuff shed in their trillions by the objects we wear and use every day, from boots and baby bottles to credit cards and car tires, and by the masses of plastic trash being broken down by sunlight, wind, rain, seawater, and general abrasion. This stuff is everywhere: literally, everywhere. Microplastics show up under the microscope in air samples from remote mountain peaks, ice from Arctic wastes, and sediment from the deepest ocean trenches. They’re buried in peat and course through rivers; they float through your living room and swirl from your taps. They’re in our wastewater, and in the sludge from it that we spread over crops. They’re embedded in plants, animals, and humans; they’ve been found in the first feces of newborn babies and in the bloodstreams of their mothers. And they’re very much not biodegradable, so once the fragments become too small for normal erosion to keep breaking them apart, they may stick around for centuries. So what, you might ask—it’s just plastic! After all, if you accidentally swallow a shirt button, it’ll pass straight through you, right? But when it’s broken down into microscopic fibers, spherules, and shards, it behaves very differently. These particles leach out toxic chemicals, including carcinogens. Their rough surfaces snag other toxins and microbes, transporting them to new environments and into bodies. Small creatures like plankton and insects mistake microplastics for food, so they get less nutrition, grow less, reproduce less, and sicken more easily, with effects that can cascade all the way up the food chain. Microplastics have been shown to mess with gene expression and endocrine systems in various animals. Plastic microfibers can get deep into lungs, causing a kind of damage similar to that from asbestos. We don’t yet know how much harm microplastics are doing to human health. It’s possible that there hasn’t been much so far, though some correlations should have us worried. (Rising obesity, asthma, and mental health issues, while they clearly have other causes, might also be partly due to microplastics.) But we know two things for sure: Microplastics do cause harm at high enough concentrations, and concentrations will keep rising for a long, long time. If we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow, we’d stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at once, but if we stopped making plastic tomorrow, the existing plastic in our buildings, appliances, furniture, cars, clothes, toys, tools, and trash would keep breaking down and adding to the indestructible, planetwide microplastic mush. The ill effects might build gradually, or they might come in a rush as the concentration in some critical part of an ecosystem reaches a toxic tipping point. This is the frankly terrifying reality spelled out in [A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies](, by WIRED staffer Matt Simon, which publishes today ([read an excerpt here](). I’ve chosen to highlight Matt’s book because I think this is the big environmental crisis the world has overlooked by focusing on climate change. (Are there others you think are flying too far under the radar? [Let me know in the comments online](.) The lack of attention to this is probably no accident. As Matt likes to point out, plastics are the fossil-fuel industry’s secret survival weapon. Even as it purports to be promoting cleaner energy, the industry is keeping itself alive by pushing petrochemicals made from the same black goo. And before you decide that recycling is the answer, think again: Most plastic currently ends up as landfill (or worse, burned) because most recycling isn’t economical, and in any case all plastic, recycled or not, is destined to keep releasing its microscopic spawn into the world. What can we do about it? Matt’s advice: Don’t let the industry soothe you with promises of sustainability or guilt you into reusing all your bottles (though you should try to use non-plastics where you can). Instead, as with climate change, the main difference will be made not by individual sacrifice but by people pushing politicians to pass laws that limit or tax the use of plastics. As it happens, many policies that limit carbon emissions will likely limit plastic production too. Plastic doesn’t have to be banned altogether to make a big difference to the risks. And as hard as it is to imagine getting rid of something so widespread and useful, public pressure coupled with lawsuits have successfully tackled other toxic and ubiquitous threats—like lead-based paint—in the past. So the main thing you can do right now is [buy and read Matt’s book](—or check out some of the stories below that he and others have written for WIRED—and talk to your friends about the issue. Awareness is always step one. You could also take a look at the work of advocacy groups such as [Plastic Pollution Coalition](, [Beyond Plastics](, and [5 Gyres](. And if there are other ways you or people you know have found to push for systemic change, [please share them with readers in the comments](. Gideon Lichfield | Global Director, WIRED And 6 More WIRED Stories on the Subject [Baby Poop Is Loaded With Microplastics]( [BY MATT SIMON | 5-MINUTE READ]( [An alarming new study finds that infant feces contain 10 times more polyethylene terephthalate (aka polyester) than an adult’s.]( [Microplastics May Be Cooling—and Heating—Earth’s Climate]( [BY MATT SIMON | 5-MINUTE READ]( [Tiny bits of plastic are swirling in the sky, and a new model suggests they could be subtly affecting the climate.]( [The Science Museum Wants Their Plastic Samples. They Refused]( [BY MATT REYNOLDS | 6-MINUTE READ]( [Three microplastic researchers have backed out of an arrangement to send materials to the Science Museum in London to protest a controversial deal with Shell.]( [‘Plastitar’ Is the Unholy Spawn of Oil Spills and Microplastics]( [BY MATT SIMON | 4-MINUTE READ]( [On the beautiful beaches of the Canary Islands, scientists discovered a noxious new pollutant: tar mixed with tiny bits of plastic.]( [Striking Graphs That Show Humanity’s Domination of the Earth]( [BY MATT SIMON | 5-MINUTE READ]( [An easy-to-use database quantifies our shake-up of the planet, from fossil fuels to farming to plastics. But there are a few bright spots.]( [The Mediterranean Sea Is So Hot, It’s Forming Carbonate Crystals]( [BY MATT SIMON | 4-MINUTE READ]( [In the rapidly warming Eastern Mediterranean, water stratifies into layers, like a cake. That’s allowing carbon-spewing crystals to form.]( [GET WIRED]( [Get WIRED for just $29.99 $5. Includes the print edition plus editor in chief Gideon Lichfield's column, System Update.]([Subscribe now.]( [(image) WIRED Logo]( [(image) WIRED on Facebook]( [(image) WIRED on Twitter]( [(image) WIRED on Instagram]( [(image) WIRED on LinkedIn]( [(image) WIRED on YouTube]( [Podcasts]( Have questions or comments? [Reply to this email](mailto:hello@wired.com?subject=WIRED%20Newsletter%20Questions,%20Comments%20or%20Feedback). This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( or [manage your newsletter subscriptions](newsletter=wir) Copyright © Condé Nast 2022. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.