Microplastics — the breakdown of plastic materials into microscopic (unseeable) particles in our water and soil — are now everywhere in our environment and are impacting wildlife and human health at a level we are just starting to understand. Ingestion of microplastics, which leach from plastic materials in the environment, has been shown to harm wildlife, including seabirds, turtles and fish, as well as humans. Seabird die-offs, otherwise unexplained, are the “canary in the coal mine.” Recent research shows that seabirds ingesting plastic as food, or in the water, have cell breakdowns and organ (kidney and liver) failure, on top of deaths due to stomach blockages by plastic pieces. Human health could also be affected, as noted by Tracey Woodruff, a University of California San Francisco professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, and her colleagues. They have reviewed “nearly 2,000 scientific studies about microplastics’ health risks ... and warn that ingested microplastics appear to reduce fertility and may increase the risk of cancer, particularly in the digestive tract.”
We have to start somewhere to reduce microplastics in our water, soil and food. Let’s start by passing the Maryland “bottle bill” (House Bill 232, Senate Bill 364), which would put a 10- to 15-cent deposit on beverage containers, to significantly reduce a source of microplastics. Cindy Dillon, in her Opinion in the Daily State News, “Marylanders need to support bottle bill,” notes that, in Maryland, 4 billion of the 5.5 billion beverage containers (73%), many of which are plastic, are left in the environment to break down and leach into our soils and water. Ten other states have succeeded in collecting up to 90% of beverage containers with refundable deposit programs. We can do the same.
Call or write and ask your Maryland representative to please vote “yes” on the bottle bill this year, to protect our shore wildlife and our own health. Find your representatives using the following link and then click on “Lookup”: mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/members/district. Let’s do this.
Dr. N. Jo Chapman
Cambridge, Maryland
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
