Dear Editor,
I was reflecting on Damian Carrington's piece on "Nanoplastic pollution found at both of Earth's poles" (The Guardian, 21st January 2022, link below) and see that the main sources are Polyethylene, PET and tyre dust, with their origin being 1. plastic packaging and bottles, 2. synthetic fibres (from washing clothes) and 3. microscopic dust from the tread of tyres.
Although the scientists are still not sure of the total scale: "... it is a very big problem. How big? We don’t know yet.”, it is clear that, as they say: "... once in the body, it’s hard to imagine they’re not doing irreversible damage.”
So what to do?
I my view we need to take a leaf out of the Covid book: During the pandemic it was so often said that the disease might cause organ damage and might have long-term consequences, both of which are probably true. Here, on the weight of the word "might" a whole raft of measures was quickly put in place. So let's do the same with plastics!
And why wait? Why not start immediately to crank down on the "three baddies" (plastic packaging, synthetic clothing and tyres) and pass legislation (taxation, selective prohibition and rulings) to phase these things out of our world? It does not need to happen immediately but we should have a target that, each year there has been an x% reduction in these three things. And we shouldn't worry too much about the consequences: Humans are ingenious so, as those items become scarcer and more expensive, we will, out of necessity, switch to alternatives (natural fibres, re-usable or biodegradable packaging and less road-transport).
We just need to do it. Or maybe we would prefer to analyse it for a few years more ... rather than actually start to fix it?
Regards
