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The results were shocking. From 2021 to 2022, Surgeons from Beijing's Anzhen Hospital collected blood and tissue samples from 15 patients undergoing heart surgery, and every single patient had at least some microplastics in those samples. It's hard to escape. The air we breathe. The water we drink. The very food we eat. Microplastics are everywhere. But just how bad is this epidemic of plastic? Is our increased exposure to plastic destroying our health like we're hearing about in the headlines? [play clips of alarm about plastic] And what ties
do microplastics have to climate change and the power of the fossil fuel industry? Today, we tackle the specter of microplastics. We'll dig through minuscule grains of soil and explore the far reaches of the atmosphere. From the plastic running through our veins way all the way to the damning documents that reveal the complicity of fossil capital in this plastic crisis, today we'll uncover just how dangerous microplastics really are. If you want to watch all my videos a month early and ad-free, consider becoming a Nebula member. Signing up for Nebula using my link literally is what helps this channel stay financially
viable. In the process, you get access to over 30 bonus and extended Our Changing Climate videos, like the speculative fiction video I recently released envisioning an ecosocialist world running on 100% renewable energy many years in the future that you can only watch on Nebula. You can also watch my next video on how you can take climate action a month early, alongside an hour-and-a-half-long interview discussing the concepts of Half-Earth Socialism, and much more. Nebula is swimming in awesome documentaries and deeply informative videos. Signing up is super
easy, and you can pay just $3 a month with my special link! All you have to do to watch is head to my link at go.nebula.tv/occ, click on the big blue button, put in your information, and boom, you now have access to a massive library of thoughtful ad-free Nebula-exclusive media from over 200 creators you love. The Prevalence of Microplastics 8 billion tons. A number so massive that it's hard to fathom. That is the amount of plastic estimated to exist on the earth. That's double the mass of all of the animals currently in existence. So, it's no exaggeration to say that we live in a world of plastic. These days,
pretty much anything you touch contains some form of plastic. Your phone, food container, clothes, and that shampoo bottle in your shower all contain some form of plastic. And now, almost 75 years after plastic exploded into mainstream use, we must face the consequences of such gluttonous production. While images of a plastic straw in a turtle's nose or plastic bags piling up on the side of the highway typically come to mind when we think of plastic pollution, we need to zoom in on a threat that has only recently garnered attention. Microplastics. [play clip] Unlike
organic material, plastics are rarely chewed up, decomposed, and mineralized by bacteria and other microorganisms-they don't break down organically. Instead, they just split apart and degrade into smaller and smaller pieces. These little bits then accumulate everywhere. They come from plastic containers breaking down in the sun, from the polyester plastic fibers that fray off of your pants in the wash, and even from microscopic tears in car tires when they come into contact with the road. And by everywhere, I do mean everywhere. Researchers have found
microplastics in the air we breathe, cosmetics, our water, our soil, our immune cells, our livers, our hearts, our testicles, our breastmilk, our placentas, and even our fruits and vegetables. But just how bad is it if plastic is everywhere? Is it really a plastic crisis or is just overblown? Microplastic Harm the Planet: Climate change and plastic pollution appear to be parallel problems. Two crises that have co-evolved from the insatiable overproduction and overaccumulation of capitalism. Two separate catastrophes that rarely interact. But as we will
soon see, that is far from the case. Climate change exacerbates plastic pollution and vice versa. The two are intimately intertwined. Indeed, microplastics, and plastics in general, are fueling the fire of climate chaos, because plastics are just fossil fuels made solid. Over 99% of plastics are made from chemicals derived from fossil fuels. Indeed as this research paper reveals, plastic production accounts for 4% of global fossil fuel use for materials and 3-4% for energy during production. All of this means enormous emissions from the creation
of plastics. In 2019, the plastic industry, which is just a subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry, emitted the equivalent of 850 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which is more emissions than the annual outputs of 190 individual countries. But its not just the plastic production process that is damaging the atmosphere. The degradation of plastics into microplastics has also been shown to release copious emissions and toxic chemicals into the air and water. To make matters worse, recent research seems to suggest that as microplastics
break down into smaller and smaller pieces their emissions become larger. As a result of both this off-gassing, and fuel needed for its production, "the global life cycle GHG emissions from traditional plastic materials were 1.7 Gt of CO2e in 2015, and if current trends continue, they will rise to 6.5 Gt of CO2e by 2050 (Zheng & Suh, 2019)." As of right now, plastics are responsible for 4.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions. But that percentage is only predicted to grow, as the plastics industry becomes a safe haven for fossil capitalists to sell their glut of
oil and gas reserves. Right now, plastics is one of the fastest growing industries, and if left unchecked, plastic emissions could claim a 15% share of the world's emissions. Unfortunately, direct emissions are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to plastic pollution. The prevalence of microplastics throughout the natural world is disrupting crucial cooling and carbon sequestration systems. Systems that are holding back even worse global warming. Chief among these is the ocean's ability to pump carbon down into its depths and store for
millions of years. In very simplified terms, the pump works through phytoplankton near the surface pulling carbon dioxide out of the air for energy. These then get eaten by larger organisms and turned into fecal matter which slowly sinks to the ocean floor where those dead organisms and carboniferous fecal matter can be sequestered in the sediment for potentially millions of years. The problem comes when that carbon's ability to sink downward is disrupted by microplastics. The prevalence of microplastics in the upper reaches of the ocean means that as fish, copepods,
and other organisms feast on phytoplankton, they also feast on plastic. Plastic that alters the sinking rate of fecal matter and ultimately the amount of carbon that reaches the ocean floor. Put another way by a meta-analysis of the role of microplastics in global warming "These positively buoyant plastic particles make fecal pellets lighter, reducing their sinking rate and, as a result, their carbon storage potential." This reduction in sinking rate varies from species to species, but across the board it's bad. Researchers found a "2.25-fold
decrease in sinking rates for [the copepod Calanus helgolandicus]," while another paper demonstrated a 1.35-1.47-fold decrease in sinking rate for another ocean-dwelling organism. In short, as microplastics accumulate in our oceans, they disrupt a crucial carbon sink. Indeed, the world's oceans absorb roughly 31% of all global carbon emissions. Microplastics are already starting to disrupt that great blue carbon sink, alarm bells should start ringing everywhere. To add insult to injury microplastics are also potentially disrupting the cooling capacities of
atmospheric cloud formation, as well as disrupting the carbon sequestration capabilities of the very soil underneath our feet. Unfortunately, research in both fields is sparse and emerging. In terms of the sky, its unclear whether microplastics will provide a net cooling or warming effect. When interviewed by Yale's Environmental publication, a researcher in the field noted that "skies heavily polluted with plastic will probably make both more high-altitude ice clouds, which tend to warm the Earth's surface, and more low-altitude water clouds, which tend to cool the Earth. Which effect will dominate is unknown." Similarly,
in the same meta-analysis of the effects of microplastics on global warming mentioned earlier, we see that "According to recent studies, soil MPs may impact carbon cycling in soil and the ability of soils to store carbon, thus affecting how much nitrous oxide (N2O) and CO2 are released into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases." But again, these studies are still not certain about just how destructive the relationship is between microplastics and soil carbon sinks. The unfortunate reality is that microplastic pollution is only projected to get worse. The 8 billion tons of plastic we've already
made will continue to break down into smaller and smaller pieces. Meanwhile, we are projected to almost triple that amount of plastic on the planet by 2060. But all of this plastic isn't just disastrous for the planet, it's affecting human well-being right now. Microplastics Harm People: If you take a sample of the average person's kidney, blood, or even heart, you're likely to find some microplastic. That's right-plastic runs through our veins, and the growing body of science reveals that this is disrupting our health. To be clear, we are not consuming a credit card's worth of plastic every week like headlines (and I) have
previously claimed. That was based on a flawed and discredited study. This much more rigorous study found instead that adults, on average, ingest roughly 0.000000583 grams of plastic per day, which is far less than a 5-gram credit card. But the problem is that this plastic accumulates over the course of our lifetime, and even if the total amount of plastic is small, the toxicity of those foreign plastics in our body wreaks havoc across organs and cells. To start, microplastics increase inflammation. When you consider that the job of immune cells is to seek out and destroy foreign
contaminants in the body, this makes sense. Studies like this one have found microplastics within immune cells. Or as Wendy Zuckerman and Rose Rimler from the Science Vs podcast put it: ["the whole function of some immune cells is to take foreign objects inside your body, bacteria, viruses, right? And to gobble them up and get rid of them … and so they're seeing microplastics as a foreign object, which they are, and trying to get rid of them? Right. So what might be happening is that the microplastics were triggering people's immune cells to come out - And in other words, that's inflammation, essentially"] But inflammation
is just the start. Plastics are host to copious amounts of chemicals like BPA, that release as they break down and subsequently disrupt the functioning of hormones in our bodies. Hormones are essentially our personal messaging system, so when they're disrupted our body starts going a bit haywire. The toxic, hormone disruptors are known as endocrine disruptors. Endocrine disruptors have been linked to gaining weight in both animals in humans because these chemicals tend to turn virgin stem cells into fat rather than bone or muscles. But also harmful plastic chemicals
disrupt crucial growth periods in young people. Indeed some have pointed to endocrine disruptors as a leading influence of girls starting puberty earlier to the tune of "almost 3 months per decade from 1977 to 2013." Meanwhile, declining sperm rates, as well as fertility rates among women, have been linked to endocrine-disrupting chemicals from plastics. The bottom here is that plastics are all around us and in us and they are already disrupting our hormonal functioning. But luckily, we've mostly gotten rid of BPA in our water bottles, right? So we're fine?
Well no. A lot of the BPA replacements are just as bad and have been linked to similar health outcomes we've seen from BPA. These toxic chemicals are what make plastic, plastic. Given the scope of both the environmental and human toll of plastics, why is the mountain of plastic rising? To understand how we've so monumentally failed to curb plastic pollution, we need to turn towards the fossil fuel industry itself. How the Fossil Fuel Industry Lied To Us All: In February of 2024, the Center for Climate Integrity released a bombshell report. One that revealed five decades of deception from the oil
and gas industry. But this wasn't about their decades of misinformation and obfuscation of the connections between fossil fuels and climate change, instead, it detailed the insidious maneuvering of fossil capital to ensure plastics continue to be an essential part of the global economy. As I've already mentioned earlier, plastics are fossil fuels. Plastic companies are just another wing of the fossil fuel empire, it's just oil and gas packaged in another way. And as backlash against fossil fuels mounts, oil giants like Shell and Chevron are increasing
their plastic output. But the plastics industry is just as vulnerable to public backlash as fossil fuels. Indeed the history of plastics is marked by deceptive marketing and tactics to quell public dissent about the toll of plastic pollution. At the core of this strategy, as the Center for Climate Integrity reveals, was selling consumers on recycling. To be clear, recycling is not a solution to the glut of plastic production. For one, the vast majority of plastics that consumers throw into the recycling bin, aren't recycled into new products
because there is no market for the specific type of plastic under capitalism. As the Center for Climate Integrity explains: "certain types of plastics have no end markets… and therefore are impossible to recycle. To date, viable markets only exist for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bottles and jugs. These are known as plastics #1 and #2." In addition, there are so many different plastics, and recycling needs highly pure plastics. So when a plastic bag or bottle is made with several different types of plastics it can often be unusable or too energy-intensive to transform into usable
plastic again. And finally, even if something is recycled, you can only get one or two cycles out of the process before the plastic degrades. Because of all these hurdles, plastic that ends up in recycling usually isn't turned into something new. The U.S. recycles just 5 to 6% of plastics. And yet, to keep their production line churning, fossil fuels flowing, and profits growing, the petrochemical industry championed recycling as the solution to plastic waste throughout the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. During that period, as one petrochemical representative
testified in Congress in 1992, there was a "rush to demonstrate environmental purity. The call was to recycle or be banned." As a result, fossil fuel companies like Exxon Chemical alongside bottling companies created the Plastics Recycling Foundation which was used to assuage lawmakers' fears about plastics by claiming that the industry was researching plastic recycling, and would tackle to problem. They did this, as one internal industry letter explains: "to deflect some harsh, restrictive language singling out plastic as a difficult material to collect
and recycle." Recycling, then, was a shiny object the industry could hold up to distract from their destructive overproduction. And the petrochemical companies did this even though they knew recycling wasn't a real solution. As one of the founding directors of the plastics industry front group, the Vinyl Institute, explained at an industry conference in 1989, "Recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem." Indeed the Vinyl Institute released a report in 1986 that explained "recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution, as it
merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of." Instead of curtailing plastic production or finding a better waste management solution in lite of the damning research on recycling, the petrochemical industry doubled down and championed its potential through marketing. [play clip of recycling ads] According to the Center for Climate Integrity, the plastics industry pushed for resin identification codes on packaging that made it seem like their products were actually recyclable when they really weren't. [play clip] Meanwhile, plastics companies promoted commitments to recycle
vast amounts of plastics even though they knew they were unattainable. One representative from DuPont admitted as much to a recycling conference in 1992, explaining that "It is no secret that the quantitative goals industry originally set for itself for economically recycling plastic containers extracted from municipal waste streams were extremely ambitious." In short, the plastic industry wielded false commitments and false hope to deflect attention away from their industrial pollution throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And it was successful,
recycling exploded in popularity, and backlash against plastic in the form of bans quieted down. Today, however, as plastic bans and ire over microplastics threaten business again, fossil chemical businesses are once again using similar tactics. This time they are claiming that "advanced" recycling will save us. Because the knowledge that conventional recycling is not only ineffective but also essentially a sham to individualize the problems of the plastic industry, petrochemical and packaging
companies are embracing chemical recycling. An old technology with a new name, chemical recycling has been proven again and again to be economically unviable, ineffective at recycling many plastics, and often just transforms plastics into toxic waste or fuel. And much like in the 1990s, petrochemical companies are championing recycling goals to distract us from their pollution. ExxonMobil, Dow, and Chevron Phillips Chemical have all announced pledges to increase their "advanced recycling" capabilities. Deja vu comes hammering home. As we have seen time and time again, capitalists are interested in the accumulation of profits,
all else comes second. So, paying lip service to cleaning up plastic pollution until anger wanes seems to be the continued strategy of fossil and petrochemical capital. This must end. It seems that true change and harm reduction must be forced upon fossil capital. Toppling the Petrochemical Plastic Empire The unfortunate reality is that plastics have been crucial for certain aspects of life. For healthcare, to avoid massive amounts of food waste. But those plastics represent a miniscule amount compared to the oceans
factories churn out. The reality is that plastic production is following the logic of capitalism. Its overproduction is pushing into every nook and cranny of our lives. A world without toxic packaging materials and physical plastic pollution seems far way, but we must start now if we are to make it there. Immediate harm reduction strategies could look like banning of endocrine-disrupting chemicals from plastic production while ramping up production of plastic alternatives, and just pushing for the elimination of needless plastic. But ultimately,
an end to plastic and microplastic pollution won't come from tinkering around the edges. Petrochemical companies must be held accountable, both for past harm and future production. The plastic industry must be accountable for the end of life of their goods-much like glass bottle companies used to collect their own bottles for reuse. But to truly minimize the impact of plastics on our world and bodies, we must move away from a capitalist model that incentivizes the production of plastics and the dissemination of misinformation about the health of people and
the planet. From an economic based on exchange and profits to one based on use and needs. One where all non-essential plastic production must end and be replaced with biodegradable, non-toxic alternatives that leave little impact on the planet and our bodies. To build that world, however, we need to get up from our chairs and take action. Fortunately, next month's video explores what you can do to help build that world and take climate action, and if you're a Nebula subscriber, you can watch that video right now. Because Nebula subscribers get to watch all my videos a whole month early and ad-free. I love telling my viewers about
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