Earth day, plastic and a man-made disease

With at least 10 million tonnes of plastic being dumped into oceans each year, experts have long been warning about an environmental plastic cataclysm. Now it has been shown that animals are dying from a new man-made disease: plasticosis.

Coined in 2023, the term shows just how prevalent and toxic our plastic garbage has become to animals. Not only are whales, sea turtles, fish and birds being poisoned by plastic. It has made its way into our own diet. In a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Raffaele Marfella et al, has shown that microplastics were detected in the plaque in veins of people who had cardiac problems.

In the animal world, seabirds seem to be particularly vulnerable. Plasticosis involves plastic ingestion and is causing damage to the stomach, scar tissue, and eventual death. It starves the birds who already have plastic-filled stomachs and is thought to be as lethal as asbestos.

In order to find out why birds were so thin and were dying in an Australian wildlife preserve, Hayley S. Charlton-Howard et al, examined 21 adolescent Flesh-footed Shearwater birds from Lord Howe Island in 2021.  Some had already died, while others had very low body mass. Their stomachs were found to not only to contain pumice, which is naturally used by birds to break down their food, Charlton-Howards’ findings published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials in 2023, were alarming for the seabirds:

“We found highly significant relationships between plastic presence, the severity of scar tissue formation, and prevalence of collagen within proventriculus tissue structures, but we did not find such elevated collagen prevalence to be related to the presence of pumice, reinforcing the notion that plastics induce this unique pathology. Scar tissue formation was clear and evident in nearly all samples that were assessed, raising greater concerns for the health of the overall shearwater population … The presence of plastic triggers a ‘maelstrom of compounding sublethal impacts,’” Charlton-Howard explained. “The fact that we’re seeing such damage in such a vital organ is really, really concerning.”

Another study published in Environmental Science and Technology by Jennifer L. Lavers et al, noted “The presence of plastic had a significant affect on blood morphometrics,” encompassing both the size and shape of an organism or organ.

The Audubon Society has also pointed out that Lord Howe Island in Australia, where the study was conducted, is in an isolated World Heritage site. However, there is some hope because “The United Kingdom announced a ban on several single-use plastics in January, joining similar restrictions in Canada, Barbados, and the European Union. Those are important steps, but not enough to curb the problem.”

Sources

Raffaele Marfella, M.D., Ph.D, Francesco Prattichizzo, Ph.D., Celestino Sardu, M.D., Ph.D., Gianluca Fulgenzi, Ph.D., Laura Graciotti, Ph.D., Tatiana Spadoni, Ph.D., Nunzia D’Onofrio, Ph.D., "Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events" New England Journal of Medicine, 6 March, 2024, https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2309822

Plastic Pollution Is So Pervasive That It’s Causing a New Disease in Seabirds. (2023, April 6). National Audubon Society. https://www.audubon.org/news/plastic-pollution-so-pervasive-its-causing-new-disease-seabirds

Plasticosis: a new disease caused by plastic that is affecting seabirds. (2023, March 3). The Natural History Museum, London, UK. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/march/plasticosis-new-disease-caused-by-plastic-affecting-seabirds.html

Hayley S. Charlton-Howard, Alexander L. Bond, Jack Rivers-Auty, Jennifer L. Lavers. “‘Plasticosis’: Characterising macro- and microplastic-associated fibrosis in seabird tissues” Journal of Hazardous Materials. 15 May, 2023. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389423003722

Plasticosis. (2024, February 19). Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticosis

Jennifer L. Lavers, Ian Hutton, and Alexander L. Bond. “Clinical Pathology of Plastic Ingestion in Marine Birds and Relationships with Blood Chemistry. (2019, July 15). The Natural History Museum, London, UK. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2019/july/ocean-plastic-is-changing-the-blood-chemistry-of-seabirds.html