Plastic In Land and Air

In part six of her series on plastics, Julie Borgerding July talks about the prevalence of plastics in everything we touch, from in our homes to our food.

Plastic is everywhere. While one form of plastic on land is easily seen as litter, there are also microparticles in fields where food is grown. The jury is out as to whether this is something to be concerned about in Minnesota.

Plastics get into agricultural fields sometimes intentionally, sometimes not – on seeds, from plastic mulch sheeting, in airborne and waterborne forms, sludge and wastewater used for their nutrients and from paints. Micro and nano plastics can affect soil structure and soil fertility by destroying microbiota and affecting enzymes in the nutrients cycle, water filtration and contamination of water. All this can affect plant growth. 

Sludge from water treatment facilities and manufacturing facilities has been used across the country on fields, some of which have now been shown to kill plants and cattle. While sludge puts some needed nutrients back into soil, it also can put heavy metals and long-lasting PFAS chemicals in the soil. If PFAS are in the sludge, they will eventually get into water. Plastic can adhere to roots and stunt plants and carry microplastics internally. It can externally stick to leaves and be difficult to wash off. Livestock eating plant material ingest microplastic and if we eat any of these animals, we ingest plastic.

PFAS, used in products like paper cup coating and nonstick and stain resistant materials, are being taken out of production. It has taken many years for their destructive effects to be made known. An “Analytical Chemistry” article notes the lack of standardized research methods for better understanding plastic’s environmental impact. Of the 80,000 registered chemicals used in plastic, only 12 are regulated! There is a lot we do not know.

Back to the trash in our streets. This plastic gets blown around to trees, rivers, lakes and can end up in far places by air. Sun and wind break down the plastic bottles, bags and other stuff into micro plastics, which, if floating, get caught on something, and microbits get blown around in the air across states. Car tire wear leaves 2 or more pounds of microplastic per tire in our sewers via rain or into the air by wind. We might bring this into our homes on our shoes, but we have plenty of other plastic in our homes to get into the air – carpet, curtains, toys, polyester and other fibers in our linens and clothes. We cannot get away from plastic.

However, we can intentionally use less, demand less, buy less. Everyone’s effort will be different. But it is the only way to get production down. If there is less demand, less will be made. Recycling empty recyclable plastic is vital. Only 5% of recyclable bottles are recycled. We can easily do way better! Below is a very informative, easy to watch video of the whole plastic problem.