Page 9 - Plastics News June - 2020

The Myth On Lifetimes Of Plastics Falls Apart

It's in vogue to shame Plastics, but let us not forget Plastics was a savior worldwide during the
COVID 2019 pandemic. Despite the fact, Plastics is now again blamed for all the environmental
problems, thanks to the littering. Most of us have seen informational posters at parks and
many other public places specifying how long plastics bags, bottles, and other products last in
the environment. They're a good reminder to not litter, but where does the information on the
lifetime expectancy of plastic goods come from, and how reliable is it?

The long-standing mystery around the life expectancy of plastic goods has prompted a new
study from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution looking at how the lifetime estimates of
straws, cups, bags, and other products are being communicated to the public. Collin Ward, a
marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and member of the its Microplastics
Catalyst Program, a long-term research program on plastics in the ocean, the lead author of a
new paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, along
with WHOI marine chemist Chris Reddy, analyzed nearly 60 individual infographics and
documents from a variety of sources, including governmental agencies, non-profits,
textbooks, and social media sites.To their surprise, there was little consistency in the lifetime
estimates numbers reported for many everyday products, like plastic bags, among the
materials."The estimates being reported to the general public and legislators vary widely. In
some cases, they vary from one year to hundreds of years to forever", says Ward. In reality,
these estimates didn't stem from actual scientific studies. Ward said he did a lot of digging to
find peer-reviewed literature that was either funded, or conducted, by the agencies putting
the information out there and couldn't find a single instance where the estimates originated
from a scientific study.

In one of their own peer-reviewed studies on the life expectancy of plastics published last
year, Ward and his team found that polystyrene, one of the world's most ubiquitous Plastics
may degrade in decades when exposed to sunlight, rather than thousands of years as
previously thought. Reddy feels that one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the fate of
plastics in the environment is that they simply break down in to smaller bits that hang around
forever.

We need to understand the environmental and human health risks associated with something
that lasts one year in the environment, versus the same thing that lasts 500 years, are
completely different.

This is one of the path breaking research and I am sure this will lead a way forward for,
consumers need the information to make good, sustainable decisions; scientists need it to
understand the fate of plastics in the environment and assess associated health risks; and
legislators need it to make well-informed decisions rather than announcing a ban on Plastics.

June 2020 9 Plastics News